this is nothing revolutionary but i thought I'd share the easiest way I've found to melt butter without cooking it. basically it's a diy double boiler. i fill a larger pot with water and bring it to a boil, then float a smaller saucepan in it and melt the butter in that. you can walk away from this for a few minutes without any fear of the butter burning or separating, and you don't need to buy a real double boiler, as long as you have two pots of different sizes