The Glass Hack That Softens Butter Quickly For Baking

A rock-hard stick of butter straight out of the fridge is not good if you suddenly get the urge to bake chocolate chip cookies, need to make biscuits on the fly, or frosting for a cake. Butter that is not softened is much more difficult to incorporate and cream to create those air pockets, which form a lighter, more tender cookie. Your first instinct might be to place your butter in the microwave to soften it, but this can lead to melting, which will change the texture and appearance of what you are making. What's the solution? If you find yourself in this predicament, don't stress. All you need is a glass, some hot water, a plate, a few minutes, and a stick of butter.

This is a hack for softening butter that you are going to wish you knew sooner. How it works: Pick a glass that is large enough to set over a stick of butter. Fill the glass with hot water so that its walls heat up. It should take just about half a minute for the glass to absorb the water's heat. Empty the glass and dry it. Place the stick of butter, still in its packaging, standing up vertically on the plate, and cover it with the warm glass. Set a timer for five to seven minutes and walk away. When the timer goes off, the butter will be soft and ready to use. It's important to note that filling any old glass with hot water isn't always a good idea. The glass you use for this hack should be able to withstand temperature changes. Tempered glass and borosilicate glass are two types that will work well.

Why does it work? You are basically creating a mini sauna for your butter stick. Placing the glass over the butter traps just enough heat to transform it from too hard to cut through to soft enough to give it a gentle squeeze. Why use this trick instead of grating butter to bring it to room temperature or just leaving it out to soften on its own?

While the grating butter trick will make your perfect pie crust even flakier, and it is a great hack if you are making any type of pastry, if a recipe calls for an entire stick of butter, it might require more time and energy than you want to put into it. Leaving it out to naturally soften is always preferable; however, it will take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour, depending on the temperature in your home. At the end of the day, this butter stick under a hot glass hack gives you control that softening in a microwave does not, and it frees up your time so you can dedicate it, as well as your energy, to other culinary tasks.