Baking/Cooking Chemistry

[Sara_Lim_2C]

I was confused about something that happened while baking, and was wondering if there was a potential chemistry related answer? Here goes:

My brother was making browned butter for some cookies (basically just butter that's cooked over the stove before you put it in your dough). So he heated up the butter in a pan on the stove. The recipe said that if you needed to cool it down, to add an ice cube to the hot butter. He did that, and it started frothing like crazy and bubbled over the pan (and getting butter all over our kitchen floor). At first, I thought "water and oil doesn't really work as a combination, so maybe that's what caused it?" I've heard that can cause oil to pop and sputter, but that's not what happened. It just bubbled/frothed up A LOT.

Is there a potential chemistry explanation for something like this?

[Hannah Alltucker 3L]

I can't say for sure the exact science, but I believe that mixing water into oil causes the water to turn to steam rather quickly if the oil is really hot, which might cause the bubbles as it tries to rise to the surface. Maybe that's what happened in this case?