I’m still not entirely sure I made these correctly, and I was undecided about whether I liked them until the second day, but I can now say with confidence that these unusual cakes are awesome:
I have been thinking a lot about brown butter lately. We often get brown butter ice cream with dessert at Beaver’s, and I am going to attempt to make some at home, but I had never made beurre noisette before and needed something lower-pressure to start with. A pastry gone wrong is one thing; ice cream gone wrong is another.
Making the brown butter was intimidating, but I used this page as my color guide and I think I nailed it. The thing that threw me when I actually baked the cakes was the amount of melted butter left behind in the muffin wells when I pried them out. The cooling racks were soon dripping with butter:
I wasn’t expecting this, and nothing in the recipe had led me to believe I should, but I really can’t find anything wrong with them (I’ve since done some experimenting with leftover batter and found that if you don’t release them to cool, the butter is reabsorbed!). They’re not quite a muffin, not quite a cupcake, but they’re richer than either one. When they’re hot, the texture is that of a perfectly dressed muffin, dense but laden with melted butter. When they’re cold, the flavor reminds me of Royal Dansk butter cookies. I recommend trying them both ways to compare.
And then trying again just to be sure.
