Butter is an integral ingredient that you use for making the cream, batter, and dough for different desserts, cakes, cookies, and, let’s not forget savory pastry. To ensure that the final result is tasty, the butter must have a certain consistency, temperature, is not fridge temperature cold, and very hard. Otherwise, you won’t be able to whip it into a fluffy consistency and combine it with other ingredients into a smooth mixture.
The perfect solution is to take the butter out of the fridge in advance. However, if you are reading this post then you are a normal human being and like everybody else, you forgot to do this. Do not panic! I am here to help. There are several quick and easy hacks on how you can soften butter quickly. Choose the one that best suits your situation and proceed with your cooking with no fuss!
How to soften butter with a glass
For this method, you will need a glass or a 250 ml teacup (it will be safer if you use a cup as it has a handle). Boil water in a kettle and pour water into the cup/glass. Wait until all the surface of it heats up. Meanwhile, take your butter and cut it into squares and stack them on top of each other, make sure that they fit inside the cup. When the cup is hot enough, drain the water and cove the butter with a cup upside down. Give it some time and when the cup cools down, you have your butter soft and ready for further use.
Here is the list of some of my favorite desserts where you need to use softened butter:
How to soften butter with hot water
Here is another quick way to soften butter for baking. First, you need to prepare all the utensils and ingredients. Take the necessary amount of butter, a deep bowl, water, and a kettle to boil it, a zip-lock bag. Boil water and pour it into the bowl, let it cool down to around 120°F/50°C. Put the butter into a bag and tightly zip it. Place your bag with butter in a bowl with water and leave it there for no more than a minute. When the butter softens to a consistency that you need to take it out of the bowl.
How to soften butter without heating
The final method that I am going to share with you, I think, is the easiest way to soften butter, as it does not require any additional equipment or boiling water. You simply need to make the chunks of butter smaller and thus it will thaw quicker. It is a bulletproof method to soften butter but no melt it.
Take a grater and place it over the plate or cutting board. Grate butter using a coarse side. Even out grated butter into a thin layer and leave for several minutes. It will take you from one to two minutes tops to get it to room temperature.
If you have no grater at hand, simply cut butter into the smallest pieces you can and leave them to thaw near a working stove or simply on the working top. Here you will need to wait for three to four minutes to get it softened.
I hope that you could use at least one of the listed methods and it was helpful. Share your experience with everybody. Especially, if you have any other advice on how you can soften butter quickly and without using microwaves, ovens, and stoves.
