Butter me up

December 17, 2022 9:59 AM

I am baking cookie bars this weekend with a recipe that calls for (unsalted) butter to be melted, before returning to room temperature. Why?

This question isn't about why room temperature - I get that.

But what I'm finding difficult to identify in particular is the purpose of melting the butter first, then cooling it back down to room temperature, vs. just starting with the butter sticks at room temperature to begin with. I've never seen this detail in a cookie recipe.

What difference will it make in the final product?

posted by SquidLips to Food & Drink (7 answers total)

Best answer: The big difference is texture. King Arthur Flour has a great article about the subject:

If done properly, your cookies should come out slightly fudgier and more compact, with a crisp-on-the-edges, soft-in-the-center texture that bends instead of snaps.
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 10:04 AM on December 17, 2022 [12 favorites]

Best answer: Before melting, the fats and water in the butter are emulsified, meaning very thoroughly blended, and remain so when just softened. Melting fully separates the fat and water so they go into the dough as two separate ingredients, with the kind of results detailed in the KA article. Cooling the melted butter down to room temp doesn’t change the separation. I’d suggest dividing your dough in half and trying it both ways to taste test the difference.
posted by beagle at 10:14 AM on December 17, 2022 [6 favorites]

The milk solids will tend to fall to the bottom of undisturbed melted butter, and maybe that helps the butter 'wet' the other ingredients better when it’s subsequently mixed in.
posted by jamjam at 10:14 AM on December 17, 2022

Can confirm that melting the butter first makes a big difference in the initial texture quality of cookies AND several-days-later texture quality.
posted by cooker girl at 11:36 AM on December 17, 2022

Best answer: The butter should be liquid but not hot when mixing with the other ingredients. Hot could start to cook eggs or otherwise change the other ingredients say possibly sucking in more flour or something like that.
posted by RoadScholar at 4:43 PM on December 17, 2022 [2 favorites]

If it’s like the other recipes where I’ve seen this instruction: the butter is still meant to be in a liquid state when you add it. It should just be a lukewarm liquid not a hot liquid.
posted by Pallas Athena at 7:42 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

(On preview: what RoadScholar said)

I’ll embellish this useless comment by saying I usually clean the excess melted butter out of the pan with a paper towel and use it to grease the baking sheets, or if feeling verrry decadent, run a piece of good bread around the pan and eat it. Or use the pan to start soup or fry onions or something. Waste not…
posted by Pallas Athena at 7:48 AM on December 19, 2022