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Hi Bold Bakers!
The recipe says ‘room temperature’ or ‘softened’ butter. Yikes! Depending on your recipe, butter straight from the fridge could prove a bit of a problem to bakers. How to bring Butter to Room Temperature in a hurry is the question? I have the answer! While we all love the idea of meditating over what to bake, assembling ingredients, putting on some music, and taking our sweet time, life doesn’t always allow for it. But that does not mean we should skip out on our favorite treats or resort to buying store-bought baked goods.
Having your butter at room temperature is essential for great results. You might think this is a small detail that can be overlooked. However, it really does make life a lot easier to bake with and to the overall texture of baked goods. Things like room temperature eggs and butter offer a much better texture to your dishes overall than cold eggs and butter does.
How do you Soften Butter to Room Temperature?
If you’re running short on time, you have 2 options!
1. Pop cold butter in the microwave for just SECONDS (careful, this can be risky)
2. Simply fill a large, deep bowl with warm water. Place your stick of cold butter in a slightly smaller bowl and submerge the bowl in the bowl of warm water. Wait just 5-10 minutes depending on how cold your butter was, and just like that your butter should be perfectly soft and room temperature. This means there’s no reason not to start baking those cookies at 10 p.m. because you’ll still be in bed by midnight.
More Baking Tips…
I’m so glad to share this trick with you, as I know it’s one you will all use at some point or another. Next time you want to bake a cake on the fly you will be ready to rock!
This is just one simple baking tip to make your life easier in the kitchen, but I can help you with lots of other tips. Do you ever have trouble filling a piping bag? What do you do if you don’t have a rolling pin on hand? These answers and many more are answered in my Bold Baking Basics.
Did you like this baking tip? I have lots more short videos just like this one that will help you get baking confidently in the kitchen. Get more Bold Baking Basics.
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About Us
Meet Gemma
About Us
Meet Gemma
Hi Bold Bakers! I’m Gemma Stafford, a professional chef originally from Ireland, best-selling cookbook author, and the creator of Bigger Bolder Baking and the Bold Baking Network. I want to help you bake with confidence anytime, anywhere with my trusted and tested recipes and baking tips. You may have seen one of my 1000+ videos on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok or as a guest judge on Nailed It! on Netflix or the Best Baker in America on Food Network. No matter your skills, my Bold Baking Team & I want to be your #1 authority for everything baking.
Love all of your tips! Another one for butter a friend recently gave me is to put it standing up, still wrapped in the microwave and cover it with an upside down coffee cup. Microwave for 10-13 seconds. Works perfectly and doesn’t melt! I don’t know how the cup helps but it does. Comes out perfectly softened but not melted.
How can I melt my butter during winter season I tried your trick but it completely melted
SO glad to have found your site, especially this tip. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to wait till my butter or cream cheese has come to room temperature. Thanks to you, no longer will I have to. I do the water trick with eggs, milk and even sour cream but never thought to do it with butter/cream cheese. Got some baking to do on Thursday and I will be using this tip. Thanks again. Bookmarking your site. There’s so much info. Today I just barely touched the surface… ????
I love watching your videos. I want to make all of them. I will post them as I make them. Thank you.
I cut mine is much smaller pieces to create more surface space. I find that I’m usually good to go in 10-15 minutes.
One I have tried that works. Fill a glass cup with water and microwave it until hot. Pour out the water and then place the warmed glass over the stick of butter. Let it sit until softened. Time does vary but it is one way to speed it up. Another one is to microwave a few seconds at a time and rotate the stick on each side, flip end to end. That one is riskier as it can just melt.
Your hyperlink for “don’t have a rolling pin on hand” takes you to how to fill a piping bag.
Gemma, just made your best ever fudge brownies. I am 65 and i love cooking and am a very good scrstch cook. I am learning to bake and i really love it ! Anyway these were without a doubt the very best brownies I have ever had! This will from now on ne my go to for brownies! THANKS! Looking forward to trying more of your recipes ????????
I am trying to find your Homemade dry box cake mix recipe and your Homemade dry box pancake mix. I can’t seem to find them in your website or on pintrest. I am trying to cut out as many preservatives as possible. Thank you for for help!
I’ve been watching your videos for over a year now and can honestly say, it’s still my favorite pastime! I’ve made several of your recipes so far. Breads, pie crust, peanut butter, butter, cookies and so on. So thankful to have found you!