Cooking Tips

How to Clarify Butter

15 October 2020

Be sure to use a good quality butter and make at least 250 - 500g at a time.  I use unsalted Lurpak butter

Store covered in the refrigerator for 4 - 6 weeks.

INGREDIENTS:

250g - 500g Unsalted Butter

equipment 

A small Heavy Based Saucepan

Simmer mat

A Strainer - ideally lined with kitchen gauze or muslin

Wide mouthed jar for storage

method

Step 1

Place the butter in a heavy based saucepan and simmer it over very gentle heat (use a simmer mat if you have one).  The butter must not brown.  

Do not stir.

Allow the butter to bubble for a few seconds before removing it from the heat and letting it settle.  During this time the butter will split into a clear clarified butter and milk solids.

Step 2

​Have ready a double piece of muslin wrung out in warm water.  

Place a wire strainer over a bowl or the deep wide jar you are storing the clarified butter in.  

Strain the transparent, yellow butter through the muslin while it is still warm.  All of the white residue should remain in the pot or be caught in the cloth.

Step 3 

For storage, cover the jar, label with date and keep in the refrigerator.

source

Elizabeth David, Spices, Salts and Aromatics in the English Kitchen.

Recipe adapted by Elizabeth Peddey