Anyone who is a bit of a home baker has probably gotten themselves into a pickle trying to cream together cold butter and sugar. ‘It’ll be fine’, we thought, impatiently. ‘Won’t take long to mix this up’, we lied to ourselves as the hard buttery pellets shot wildly around the bowl, spraying sugar all over the counter. Deep down, we knew it wasn’t going to be fine.

The temperature of butter matters

The temperature of butter has a big impact on the outcome of your bakes, so pay close attention when recipes specify whether it needs to be chilled or room temperature/softened.

Chilled butter is used for making tender scones and crisp flakey pastry, while softened butter is the key to silky smooth buttercreams and fluffy aerated cakes. This is because softened butter can better trap air bubbles when beaten compared to cold butter, which creates a comparatively dense result.

Ways to soften butter

When winter comes around, simply leaving your butter out at room temperature – whether that be whole or cubed – often isn’t enough to get the softness you need for baking.

We’ve seen a whole lot of ‘hacks’ to soften butter. Sarah Dall of Broma Bakery places a stick of butter in the waistband of her jeans to warm up through her body heat while she weighs out the rest of her ingredients. Another popular trick is to heat a glass by filling it with boiling water, emptying it and placing it over your butter to create a mini incubator. Or, if you’re feeling a little stressed, you can bash it out between two pieces of baking paper.

While all these tricks work, sometimes you don’t have the luxury of time to waltz around with butter in your pants. When we want to soften butter in a hurry without any fuss, we turn to the microwave (sorry Nigella, micro-wah-vay)

How we soften butter in the microwave

1. Cut up the butter you need into small, even cubes (about 1.5cm, but who’s measuring?).
2. Place on a plate in a roughly single layer – they can be quite close together and slightly mounded in the middle (this way the pieces ‘insulate’ each other from melting).
3. Heat in the microwave for 8-10 seconds.
4. Check the softness of the butter by pressing it with your index finger. You should be able to leave a clean indent without your finger getting super greasy. You’re looking for a pliable, mouldable consistency rather than a sloppy one.
5. Depending on how much butter you’re using, you may need to microwave it again for one or two more rounds. Be careful not to overdo it, as you don’t want it to melt!

Tips: All microwaves have their own quirks, so if the above doesn’t work for you, try using 30% power for a slightly longer time, about 30-45 seconds. Microwaves tend to heat things unevenly – if a few of your butter blocks just start to melt in the centre of the plate, don’t stress. Give everything a good mix to bring it to the same consistency before adding any other ingredients.

Not exactly a revelation or a post built on rocket science, but definitely a tip worth remembering for times when your butter is fridge- (or winter-) cold.

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