Quick baking tip-soften butter straight from the fridge for a few seconds in the microwave to get softened butter quickly without melting the butter.
There is this spot on my counter where I leave my butter to warm when I have it intended for a baking project. But sometimes (many times) I will have an itch to bake something without previous planning. The trouble with that is that my butter is cold. Can you cream cold butter? Nope. In fact, I actually broke a beater blade on cold butter once.
So what is a gal to do?
How to soften butter quickly:
Take the stick of butter straight from the fridge and put it in the microwave for give or take 12 seconds. You may need a little trial and error to get the exact right amount of time for your particular microwave. Start with just 5 seconds, squeeze your stick of butter, and go from there. A short time in the microwave softens the butter without melting it.
Remember: softened butter should give when you press it but not smush.
Check out my post on what does softened butter mean to explain why we bother to soften our butter.
Here is another method to soften butter quickly, but is slightly more labor intensive than just using the microwave (but less room for error).
Recipes that need softened butter:
If you’d like a copy of my FREE baker’s pantry checklist, sign up below and I’ll send it to you. I like to print a copy and keep it inside my pantry so I know what I have and what I need from the store.
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Happy Baking!
Happy Baking!
