Amblydoper says three tablespoons butter per yolk. Alton Brown says four tablespoons butter per yolk. Mark Bittman says two tablespoons butter per yolk.
Which is it?
No, Amblydoper’s 3 oz of butter = 6 tablespoons of butter. One oz of butter is 2 tablespoons.
We have an old family “instant” hollandaise recipe:
3 egg yolks
1 1/2 tb lemon juice
3/4 cup butter
Heat the blender with VERY hot water. Pour out the hot water, add 1 tb of hot water. Put in the egg yolks, lemon juice, and salt to taste (1/2 tsp usually). Melt the butter so it’s very, very hot; turn on the blender, and pour the butter into the blender VERY slowly. After the butter has been added, turn off the blender. Voila!
You want the butter hot to cook the eggs, and you pour in slowly to get the right texture.
I’ll have to try that CK, sounds interesting.
I confess, though, I just use a mix from McCormick that you add margarine to.
Tastes comparable to what I get at a restaurant, which is good enough for me. Eggs Benedict is hard enough to make (as far as one person doing all the work) to be mucking with making real Hollandaise.
Nonetheless, you all have me interested. It’s probably much better with real Hollandaise. I’ll have to try it. Can you make it ahead and just reheat it?
My hollandaise recipe:
3 egg yolks
juice of 3 lemon quarters
1 cup of butter
1/4 teaspoon of cayenne
In a double boiler over hot-but-not-quite-boiling water, whisk egg yolks and a tiny bit of the lemon juice
whisk in butter in small pieces, allowing each piece to melt before adding the next, and alternating in a little lemon juice every few pieces until it’s all in there.
add cayenne and continue to stir constantly until sauce reaches desired thickness and remove from heat immediately.
Yes, this sauce is more lemony than usual. It is generally well-received, especially if there is a sear-roasted salmon filet underneath it. 
In theory, no, because the yolks will coagulate. In reality, I’ve had success with putting hollandaise on very low heat, watching like a hawk and stirring constantly, and removing the saucepan from the stove the very second it starts to get hot.
Johnny L.A., the more fat you put into a hollandaise or a mayonnaise, the thicker and creamier it gets, up until the point where the yolk can’t take more and the emulsion breaks down. Up until then, I imagine it’s more a question of how close to the edge your particular chef wants to play, and what kind of sauce he or she wants. My own rule of thumb is four tablespoons per yolk.
Does anyone else put everything in the saucepan at once and then just stir, first until the butter is melted and then until the sauce thickens?
I read an article or book where the they tested how much butter you could add before it would break. They ended up adding massive amounts of butter to the hollandaise. Apparently the yolk can emulsify very large amounts of butter. The amount of fat to liquid in butter is exactly the right proportion to emulsify in the yolk easily.