Butter – When is Rendering (Clarifying) Melted Butter Preferable?

butterdairy

I was looking at this question:

How do I butter popcorn without making it soggy?

And it got me wondering: is there any instance, either using melted butter for popcorn or in some other application, where simply melted but not clarified/rendered butter should be used?

Best Answer

Essentially clarified butter is butter that has all it's water and milk solids removed. All that is left is butterfat.

Pros and Cons of Clarified/Rendered butter:

Pros:

  • It can be stored longer than regular butter
  • It has a higher smoke point so can be heated higher without burning
  • Does contain negligible lactose for those lactose-intolerant

Cons:

  • Effort. It requires so time to melt the butter, boil off the water, filter out the milk fat, and resolidify the butter again.
  • Taste. Because the milk solids are filtered out, it has a milder "butter" taste than unclarified butter. Of course it will still be much more rich and buttery compared to regular vegetable oil.

With this information in mind, I will leave it to yourself to decide when you should and should not use clarified butter.

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