Brown Butter and Vanilla Bean Weekend Cake

Well this was a delightful, simple loaf cake to make. My husband was surprised that it was a loaf when I told him I was making a cake, but I explained to him, as Dorie did, the French call this type a cake and a layer cake a gateau.

The ingredients are incredibly simple. I actually did not have a vanilla bean, and our supermarket doesn’t carry them – I didn’t want to make a special trip to the co-op to get one, so I just used my good quality vanilla.

I also used some rum that we brought back with us from Belize last year, a nice little reminder of warmth and sunshine on this cold, blizzardy day.

It was so simple, that I did not take many pictures of the process, but I did capture the stages of browning butter. The first time I tried to make brown butter, I had no clue what I was doing, and I’m sure I’ve taken it further than I wanted on more than one occasion. Hopefully, this will be a nice step by step set of photos that will help others and remind me what to watch for during the process.

To begin, the butter was melted over medium heat, in the first picture you can see the last bit of the butter stick. Once it was fully melted, about a minute later the milk fat solids began to separate and the liquid clarified, this can be seen in the second photo.

After about four minutes, the liquid was bubbling aggressively. And a minute later, the bubbles were so intense you couldn’t see the liquid anymore.

And a minute later, it looked foamy on the top, and you can barely tell in this picture, but I tried to swirl it a bit to see the browned solids that were on the bottom of the pan. The last photo is after it was removed from heat, the foaming subsided and you could see the amber liquid and the brown solids.

The browned butter was then added to the other ingredients that had already been mixed. I did have to fold a number of times to get the butter fully incorporated, but I don’t think I overdid it.

And then finally, it was poured into the pan and baked for an hour. And I did want to show of the beautiful crockery loaf pan I have, it was my grandmother’s, perfect size and shape, and great for even heating.

We did wait until the following evening to try it, as recommended, and I think it was worth it. It is a rich, flavorful pound-cake like cake that goes great with coffee or tea. Something that is definitely nice to have on hand for a little snack or if friends were over for an afternoon.