The Genius Tip To Revive Melted Butter Back To Its Solid Form
Butter is that special ingredient in the kitchen that seems like it can do it all. When it comes to desserts, butter's temperature is critical — it can make the difference between a decadent dessert and a letdown one. For the most part, room temperature butter is ideal when making cookies. While there's an easy butter spreading hack to turn cold, hard butter into easy, spreadable decadent topping for toast and crackers, the warmer the butter gets, the trickier it gets to put it back to its solid state.
When you're whipping up cake-like chocolate chip cookies or sugar cookies, melted butter is the last thing you need. Don't bother putting the liquified butter back into the fridge to make it cold again, though — there's a faster way to solidify butter.
There's a specific way to revive sad, soupy butter back into its solid form — and all you'll need is ice cubes.
Ice, ice, butter
There's no need to toss out that over-softened, melted butter or forgo your entire cookie batter. Instead of wasting butter (and thus, saving money), America's Test Kitchen has an easy tip for re-solidifying butter. It turns out, ice cubes are your best bet for making butter solidified again.
Butter needs to be chilled rapidly to turn solid — so all you need to do is mix a few ice cubes into a bowl of melted butter and stir. In less than a minute, the butter should turn into the soft yet solid state that's perfect for your baking needs.
There's science behind why ice cubes and melted butter are the perfect combo for get solid, soft butter. As America's Test Kitchen explains, butter fat is "partially crystalline and highly sensitive to temperature change." When butter is melted, the crystals are effectively destroyed. The softened stage is between 65 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit, so when you rapidly chill butter, aim for those sweet spots.
Try adding melted butter into cookie batter
Even if your stick of butter has melted beyond saving it, there are ways to use melted butter so it doesn't go to waste. In fact, it can even elevate your baked goods. Swapping softened and creamed butter for melted butter in cookie batter can yield chewy, fudgier cookies. You can add melted butter to any drop-style dough for chocolate chip or sugar cookies, according to King Arthur Baking Company.
Melted butter isn't only for baked goods, either. It's a great topping for popcorn, toasted bread, and lobster, if you're feeling fancy. It can also be turned into a sauce, such as brown butter.
When melting butter on the stovetop, keep stirring the buttery liquid until it turns into golden brown. Brown butter is a great addition to pasta and vegetables and can be incorporated into baked goods, adding a touch of nutty, caramelized flavor to cookies, frostings, glazes, and even pancakes.