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How To Make Clarified Butter

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How To Make Clarified Butter
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Watch this film to learn how to make clarified butter the VideoJug way. Clarified butter is butter that has had the butter fat separated from the milk solids and water, leaving only the butter fat remaining. VideoJug presents a quick and easy method to achieve this goal, so sit back and watch closely. Enlarge Watch this film to learn how to make clarified butter the VideoJug way. Clarified butter is butter that has had the butter fat separated from the milk solids and water, leaving only the butter fat remaining. VideoJug presents a quick and easy method to achieve this goal, so sit back and watch closely.
Serves:
N/A
Cooking Time:
10 minutes
Total Time:
10 minutes

Step 1: You will need:

  • 250 g butter
  • 1 saucepan
  • 1 spoon
  • 1 sieve
  • 1 cheese cloth slightly damp
  • 1 bowl

Step 2: Heat the butter

Put the butter into the saucepan and slowly heat it. The butter will separate and the milk solids will float to the top of the butter in the form of foam. Using a spoon, skim off the foam. Continue to heat the butter. Be careful not to let the butter remain over the heat too long or it will begin to brown, developing what is called a "brown butter flavour". This might be useful in some recipes but it is not what we want to make here! The liquid butter will be clear. Remove it from the heat.

Step 3: Strain and store

You can now strain the butter through the cheese cloth. The water content in the butter will have evaporated and the remaining milk solids will stick to the pan and turn to a golden in colour. Skim off any possible remaining foam and store it for future use. Clarified butter can be kept in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to three or four weeks.
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Tips & Comments
  2. Twitchboy

    Poorpatrick, you are quite wrong. To hydrogenate any type of fat you must add hydrogen to it. Simply heating it cannot hydrogenate it. Heating many types of unsaturated fats do create unhealthy trans fats, but as butter is primarily made up of saturated fat it is extremely stable when heated, subsequently it is highly unlikely to oxidise and become toxic/trans fats.

  3. lblbosc

    After the butter has been melted, pour the melt into a bowl and put it into the refrigerator. When the melt has solidified, it will have three layers. The upper and lower layers contalin the milk solids and water. Remove the now solid butter from the bowl and simply rinse off the solids with cold water. if the butter is salted, the salt will be in the upper and lower layers and be removed with the rinsing.

  4. poorpatrick

    Put the butter in a bowl, and heat in the oven at about 70C until melted. Make sure that the butter isn't fried. Skim and discard the salty crust off the top of the melted butter. Carefully separate the melted butter oil from the layer of milky coloured brine, by ladling the oil into another bowl. Discard the brine when the separation is complete. The advantage of this method is that the butter oil is separated from the other components without frying the butter. Frying changes the chemistry of oil and hydrogenates it. It becomes supersaturated, and isn't healthy to eat. You won't have clarified the butter,but will have created ghee.

  5. Anonymous

    My mother always makes clarified butter at home and always adds a stick of cinnamon and a clove to increase the flavour of the clarified butter. Another secret is to put in about a spoonful or two of flour (wheat) as this separates the butter from the water quickly.

  6. rhetangle

    Have tried this recipe using goat's butter (for a lactose intolerant friend) and it worked just fine. Used what I thought was butter a second time, but was actually "butter specially formulated for baking". It didn't work at all, and enjoyed spitting globs of hot butter at me. Incidentally to answer the person below, which weirdly is me, I used an old linen sheet as a cheesecloth substitute. And in the videojug hollandaise recipe they clarify the butter and use a sieve at the same stage instead of cheesecloth.

  7. rhetangle

    I would love to know a) where the heck you get a cheesecloth or b) what would work well as an equivilent or even c) if you can actually just buy this made (need it for the pate recipe)