How To Make A Butter Candle For Sourdough Bread
Learn how to make a butter candle for sourdough bread or any kind of artisan style fresh bread. Butter candles are fun and easy to make and add a fancy touch to any party. Essentially, you’re making a candle out of butter that you can place in a loaf of bread, and once lit it will slowly melt the butter allowing you to dip your bread into it. If you’ve wanted to make the viral butter candle you may have seen online, this butter candle recipe will give you step by step instructions. You can make herbal butter candles with garlic, rosemary, or other herbs or the butter candle can just be left plain. Butter candles are perfect for holiday parties, charcuterie boards or centerpieces. The best part is they don’t take very long to make, and everyone will think you went to a lot of work when you didn’t.
How We Use This Butter Candle For Sourdough
My favorite way to serve a butter candle is in my artisan sourdough bread. It’s the perfect shape and size for a butter candle, and tastes delicious with the melted butter from the candle. You can make plain artisan sourdough bread, or flavor it with garlic or herbs like rosemary, fresh thyme or any other kind of herb that you have. You can also flavor the butter to match or complement the flavor of the bread if you’d like. There’s something so special about a homemade loaf of sourdough bread with a homemade butter candle. Perfect for a gift, for taking to a holiday party, or even for a cozy evening at home. If you’d like to learn how to make your own sourdough bread, check out my artisan sourdough bread recipe, or go to the sourdough section of this website.
Why You’ll Like This Recipe
- Simple – making butter candles is a simple project that will really make your parties look fancy
- Healthy – these butter candles are made with homemade or high quality store bought butter which is a healthy fat and good for your body especially when served with sourdough bread
- Old-Fashioned – a candle always looks cozy and old fashioned to me, and an edible butter candle at a meal will certainly give off those old fashioned homestead vibes
- Delicious – fresh sourdough dipped in a melted butter candle is one of the tastiest things you’ll ever eat
- Fun – these butter candles add a touch of fun and fancy to a butter board, a charcuterie board or a centerpiece
Sourdough Bread
My favorite way to serve a butter candle is in my artisan sourdough bread. It’s the perfect shape and size for a butter candle, and tastes delicious with the melted butter from the candle. You can make plain artisan sourdough bread, or flavor it with garlic or herbs like rosemary, fresh thyme or any other kind of herb that you have. You can also flavor the butter to match or complement the flavor of the bread if you’d like. There’s something so special about a homemade loaf of sourdough bread with a homemade butter candle. Perfect for a gift, for taking to a holiday party, or even for a cozy evening at home. If you’d like to learn how to make your own sourdough bread, check out my artisan sourdough bread recipe, or go to the sourdough section of this website.
Ingredients
High quality butter – learn how to make your own butter here
Garlic, rosemary, or other herbs, optional – for flavoring the butter
Favorite Sourdough Recipes:
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Tools You May Need
Paper cup – I like to use small bathroom sized paper cups, but you can use whatever size you’d like
Food-Safe Wicks & Stickers – most cotton wicks are food safe, but it’s a good idea to buy specifically food safe wicks and wick stickers. You can order organic hemp wicks or a beeswax wick on Amazon or look for them at your local craft store. A great thing to keep on hand for anytime you need to add something fancy to a meal.
Freezer – for getting the butter candle cold
How To Make A Butter Candle For Sourdough Bread
Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium-low heat.
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While the butter is melting, attach the wick to the middle of the bottom of the paper cup with the wick sticker. If your wick isn’t very rigid you can use a wick holder to keep the wick in the center of the cup. If you don’t have a wick holder, you can also use a clothespin and run the wick through the hole in the middle of the clothespin and then balance the clothespin on the top of the cup.
If you want to make a flavored butter candle, you can add some salt, roasted garlic, or herbs to the melted butter.
Then pour the melted butter mixture into the paper cup, filling it as full as you’d like.
Place the cup in the freezer until the butter is firm. You could even make several of these butter candles ahead of time and just store them in the freezer for whenever you need a last minute gift or a quick appetizer.
When ready to serve, cut a hole in the top of your bread that is approximately the same size as your butter candle. You can pre-slice the bread while leaving the bottom of the loaf intact to make it easier to tear off a chunk of bread, or just leave the loaf whole.
Gently tear the paper cup off of the outside of the butter candle and press the frozen butter candle down into the bread.
You can also just serve the butter candle on a plate surrounded by sliced bread if you like that presentation better.
Light the candle wick and dip bread into the butter as it melts. Enjoy the coziness of the candlelight and the delicious bread.
Flavor Ideas For A Butter Candle
- Add honey or maple syrup for a sweet butter candle
- Fresh herbs in any combination are delicious
- Roasted garlic is one of my favorite flavors to add to this candle
- Red pepper flakes will give the butter a hint of spice
Tips
If you use unsalted butter, you may want to add some salt to the melted butter
If you have a bunch of these butter candles and loaves of sourdough bread in the freezer, you can quickly and easily take an appetizer to a last minute party or add this special looking bread to a simple meal of soup and bread on a weeknight and really wow your family
Use a high quality butter to make this butter candle. Margarine or low quality butters will not make as nice of a candle.
More Topics Like This
How To Make A Butter Candle For Sourdough Bread
Equipment
- 1 Paper cup – I like to use small bathroom sized paper cups, but you can use whatever size you'd like
- 1 Food-Safe Wicks & Stickers – most cotton wicks are food safe, but it's a good idea to buy specifically food safe wicks and wick stickers. You can order organic hemp wicks or a beeswax wick on Amazon or look for them at your local craft store. A great thing to keep on hand for anytime you need to add something fancy to a meal.
- 1 Freezer – for getting the butter candle cold
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup butter use high quality butter
- 1 tsp herbs Garlic, rosemary, or other herbs, optional – for flavoring the butter
Instructions
- Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium-low heat.
- While the butter is melting, attach the wick to the middle of the bottom of the paper cup with the wick sticker. If your wick isn't very rigid you can use a wick holder to keep the wick in the center of the cup. If you don't have a wick holder, you can also use a clothespin and run the wick through the hole in the middle of the clothespin and then balance the clothespin on the top of the cup.
- If you want to make a flavored butter candle, you can add some salt, roasted garlic, or herbs to the melted butter.
- Then pour the melted butter mixture into the paper cup, filling it as full as you'd like.
- Place the cup in the freezer until the butter is firm. You could even make several of these butter candles ahead of time and just store them in the freezer for whenever you need a last minute gift or a quick appetizer.
- When ready to serve, cut a hole in the top of your bread that is approximately the same size as your butter candle. You can pre-slice the bread while leaving the bottom of the loaf intact to make it easier to tear off a chunk of bread, or just leave the loaf whole.
- Gently tear the paper cup off of the outside of the butter candle and press the frozen butter candle down into the bread.
- You can also just serve the butter candle on a plate surrounded by sliced bread if you like that presentation better.
- Light the candle wick and dip bread into the butter as it melts. Enjoy the coziness of the candlelight and the delicious bread.
