Elevate Baked Goods With This Genius Butter Wrapper Hack

Being mindful of your food waste is a sensible way to make the most of your grocery budget and preserve resources. If you're the type of conscious cook who saves the carcass from a roast chicken to make soup, we've got a genius hack for your collection: repurposing butter wrappers to lend your baked goods a scrumptious sheen and richer flavor. All you need to do is take your butter paper and lay it gently on top of your bakes as soon as they come out of the oven. The heat from your cakes and cookies will melt the remnants of butter that are stuck to the wrapper, infusing them with a richer character.

A luster of butter on the surface of muffins, bread rolls, and pie crusts serves three purposes. Firstly, it lends freshly baked goods an inviting sheen and glossy appearance that makes you want to grab a bite. Secondly, the butter brings oodles of flavor to the table, which amps up the sumptuousness of a homemade bake and lends it a rounded quality. Better yet, as the butter melts into the crevices of a sweet loaf cake or across the pastry lid of a savory pie, it gives off a moreish aroma. Finally, butter makes the perfect edible "glue" to help toppings, like turbinado sugar, stick to the top. Haven't tried coating the surface of a muffin in melted butter and dunking it directly into a bowl of homemade sprinkles? You simply haven't lived.

A simple way to make sure you always have butter papers on hand is to fold them up and place them in a resealable freezer bag. Add to the bag every time you open a new stick of butter and you'll soon have a useful stack of papers to lay over your pies and cakes. Just let them sit out on the counter to take the chill off before using them. And since you won't need to use your hands or any utensils to apply the butter, you'll save on the washing up. Moreover, you'll make use of every scrap of butter on the paper, which will reduce your overall kitchen waste.

You can also use butter papers for a clever baking trick before you pop your treats in the oven by employing them to grease your cake pans! Just rub the wrapper over the base of your tin and you'll keep your hands clean and won't need to get out the cooking spray, which can contain unwanted additives and preservatives. In fact, you need to think twice before using cooking spray on nonstick pans in particular as the lecithin inside can damage their surface. You can also employ butter paper as a cartouche to cover a simmering pan of braised meat, wrap it around corn on the cob, or use it to separate foods that are destined for the freezer, like flatbreads and burger patties.