Pancake And Waffle Batter Doubles In Flavor When You Swap Regular Butter For This

If you've ever caught a whiff of butter browning on the stovetop, you know how seductive the distinct aroma can be. Brown butter, the product of cooking water and excess liquid out of butter, leaving behind caramelized milk solids, gives food a toasted and deeply satisfying flavor. You know that a brown butter swap makes a boxed cake mix taste much richer, so it should be no surprise that the nutty, freckled fat would be a huge improvement in pancake and waffle batters. 

Part of our list of the 30 best uses for brown butter, using brown butter in a batter will impart this nutty, rich, and complex flavor directly into your breakfast (or dinner, we're not here to judge). Brown butter can smell a bit like hazelnuts, and this delicious, cozy scent is a perfect addition to plain waffles or pancakes, as it gives the often lackluster breakfast items a deeper, more enticing flavor than using plain butter or oil. Most waffle and pancake batter recipes call for either melted butter or oil, and you can do a simple substitution of the same amount that the recipe calls for.

The majority of pancake recipes call for only about four tablespoons or less of melted butter or liquid fat, so the texture should remain unaffected by the swap for brown butter. It's important to note that when swapping browned butter in place of regular butter, you need to make sure you measure the browned butter first before using it in your batter to make up for the water loss.

Make sure you don't use browned butter in the pan as the cooking fat for your pancakes or waffles, as the milk solids that have already been caramelized can easily turn acrid and burnt with just a bit more heat. You can, however, use ghee or clarified butter if you have them, as there are no milk solids to burn and both are better suited for high-heat cooking.

If you have any brown butter leftover that's not being used in a batter, you can whip the extra brown butter in a mixer until light and fluffy, while pouring in a bit of maple syrup or even honey and a sprinkle of salt to create a sweet and nutty topping for your waffles or pancakes. Whipping the brown butter creates a light and airy texture that makes spreading it over warm pancakes a breeze, and it will melt beautifully into the little pockets of a waffle. Whipping maple syrup into brown butter gives the nutty butter more sweetness and that much-desired maple flavor that pairs perfectly with griddled breakfast foods. Additionally, you can whip a bit of cooled brown butter with heavy whipping cream and vanilla extract for a silky, speckled brown butter whipped cream that would echo the flavors of your brown butter waffles.