How to Soften Butter

How to soften butter quickly! These four simple tips and tricks will teach you how to soften a stick of butter quickly and easily.

Most baking recipes that use butter call for softened butter. You’ll find softened butter in everything from chocolate chip cookies to blueberry muffins to chocolate cupcakes.

The tips and tricks below will help you quickly and easily soften butter so you’re ready to bake in no time!

Why should I soften butter?

It’s important that butter be at the correct temperature when baking. Butter is a fat that’s a solid at room temperature.

Many recipes call for creaming (beating) butter and sugar together. This creaming process incorporates air pockets into the butter/sugar mixture. When that mixture is heated, the air expands, and this expansion helps to create lighter, fluffier baked goods.

Using cold butter will leave you with chunks of butter in your batter or dough. Chunks of cold butter are great for making flaky biscuits, but they won’t give you the proper consistency in cakes, cookies, and muffins.

What does “room temperature” mean for butter?

Room temperature butter should be at about 70-72F. Some recipes will call for butter at “cool room temperature”. Cool room temperature butter should be 65-68F.

When the butter is at room temperature it should indent when pressed, but the butter shouldn’t lose its shape.

How to soften butter

There are several different methods for softening butter. Here are four easy tricks to soften butter:

Set it out

Setting butter out on the counter is the easiest and most foolproof method for perfectly softened butter. When a whole stick of butter is set out, it only takes about 30-60 minutes for the butter to reach room temperature.

At this point, you can also set out other ingredients, like milk or eggs, that need to come to room temperature.

Leaving the butter out for longer can result in warm, soft butter. Warm butter will give you cookies that bake out (are flat and greasy) and dense cakes or muffins.

Cut it into cubes

Cutting the butter into cubes or slices helps the butter to soften faster. Simply cut the butter into slices, cubes, or small chunks and place in a bowl.

This method cuts down the softening time to about 10-15 minutes.

Grate it

Grating the butter really speeds up the softening process! Simply use a box grater to grate the butter onto a large plate and let it sit at room temperature for about 4-5 minutes.

Warm glass

Heat water in a microwave-safe glass for 1 minute. Carefully pour out the hot water.

Place a wrapped stick of butter on the counter so that it’s standing upright. Put the empty glass over the butter.

The warm air in the glass will help to soften the butter. Check the butter after 5 minutes, and remove the glass. You may find that you need to continue to let the butter sit at room temperature for a few more minutes.

The downside of this method is that it softens the outside of the butter while the inside stays cooler.

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