how to Archives - I am a Honey Bee

Do you remember that moment when something just clicked for you? It was like the stars aligned.

Like when you were learning to ride a bike and then all of a sudden you got it? Or when you were practicing a piece of music and you played it through without any mistakes?

That is what I felt like when I made brown butter for the first time. Exactly that.

Everything else before then had been practice and okay, but once I made browned butter things were so much better. There was a richer flavor to things that just brought things to life. Cookies! Rice Krispie Treats! Pan Sauces! Pastries! Pies! Mashed Potatoes!

I basically want to use brown butter in ALL THE THINGS.

Side note: is it Browned Butter or Brown Butter? I’ve seen it both ways. I dunno.

Anyway, it’s so super simple to make that you will be kicking yourself that you didn’t make it earlier.

Let me walk you through the process…

Cut your butter into small pieces. This helps the butter melt evenly.

Over medium low heat, slowly melt the butter.

Once the butter has completely melted, turn the heat up slightly and begin to whisk it. Whisk the butter while it boils and gets frothy. Just don’t stop whisking it as it can easily burn.

The butter will start to turn a light golden color. It’s really important to keep a close eye on it can easily and quickly go from toasted, golden perfection to burned butter that you are tossing in the trash. If you’re phone rings while you are doing this… just ignore it. Call them back.

The process will be complete when the butter of a light brown color and the solids in the bottom of the saucepan are brown as well. Immediately pour into another heat proof container once the bits at the bottle of the saucepan are a light brown color.

And that’s it!!

Seriously, give it a try and head over to Pinterest and look up all the delicious recipes that use brown butter. You will love it!

Brown Butter

Ingredients

Butter- any quanity will do. I typically do it in half or whole stick incriments

Process

Slice the butter into thin pieces.
Add to a saucepan and melt over low heat.
Once the butter has melted, turn the heat up slightly and begin to whisk.
The butter will begin to bubble, just remain whisking. The butter will then get frothy on top, again, remain whisking.
The butter will start to turn a light golden color. Keep whisking while being cautious as the butter will continue to darken and then quickly burn.
Remove from the heat and pour into another heat proof container once the bits at the bottle of the saucepan are a light brown color.
Cool per the recipe that you are using the brown butter in or store in the refrigerator until needed.

Since moving in June, Price and I have been putting effort into our apartment to make it ‘ours’. Not just our apartment, but ‘our’ apartment. You see, the apartment that we just moved from was a weird layout so it limited furniture placement, had a giant old (ugly) sofa in it that had to stay (my best friend Emily named it The ‘Cos), and was painted obscenely bright colors that could not change (until it flooded and we were able to talk sense into the landlords). And most importantly, I lived there prior to Price moving in with basically no furniture so it didn’t appear that Price actually lived there.

One of the things that we wanted to show off were our fun times that we have captured in photos. A way to feature these photos is with photo collages. I love that they capture a variety of photos in a fun gathering of frames. I attempted to have them in our old place but our cray cray landlord thought it was a brilliant idea to have dark purple walls (in a basement), so I had to settle on collage frames since I could not have a ton of holes in the walls. I got so disinterested in them that I just gave up and left a few spots empty. See below:

So with the opportunity to have fun with this place we set out having a wall feature an assembly of photo frames. Price and I scoured the web for inspiration. I used Pinterest a lot- esp my “New Apartment” board- for gathering different decorating ideas, including the collages.

Price and I agree on nearly nothing when it comes to ~~pretty much anything~~ decorating, so it it was not shocking that I finally got the photo collage up today… 3 months after moving in. We bounced around questions relating to… black frames? white frames? what colors are the mats? sizes? frames styles?

We finally settled on black and white frames. We decided not to limit ourselves with a particular frame style or brand. The black frames would have a white mat, while white frames would have a mix of white and map mats. Sizes would range from a 4×6 to 8×10.

How to put up a photo collage:

1) Layout your photos on a piece of craft paper (even the back of wrapping paper could work).

2) Outline all frames with a marker.

3) Put you craft paper layout on wall with painter’s tape. Locate where you want your collage to be located. If you anticipate your collage growing, like we do, locate it where you will have enough room to allow outward expansion.