In recipes, it is often written to use soft or softened butter or at room temperature and, after a sigh because this indication requires programming to our desire for sweet and cooking, we give up and take out of the fridge, at least 30 minutes before I use the stick of butter so that it becomes soft. In this article, we read about How to soften butter?
There is a reason for this indication, and here is a trick to make the butter-soft in a few minutes, without sighs and long waits.
How to Soften Butter?
Softened or soft butter or at room temperature or also called “ointment” (if it is then worked a few seconds with a spatula and made just like an ointment), differs from melted butter (and we talk about melted butter whether you use the microwave, saucepan, bain-marie or radiator) for the yield inside the preparation we are going to make.
Butter is saturated and solid fat; therefore, it becomes soft at room temperature but always remains stable when it heats naturally. When it is melted, it passes from the solid-state to the liquid form, and this step changes its molecular structure. What does it mean? That when it is stable, it not only manages to give more strength to the dough (this is why we always use the butter in the leavened products such as pandoro and panettone), but it manages to incorporate better the grains of sugar which, translated, means that the sugar melts better.
RESULT? A MORE HOMOGENEOUS AND SOFT DOUGH.
If you notice it, soft butter is often required when it must be worked immediately with sugar. (For example, in some recipes for donuts, cakes, plumcakes) precisely because it must be soft but solid. Suppose you work cold butter from the fridge with sugar with an electric whisk. In a few seconds, you will see lumps of sugar flying everywhere that cannot mix.
A game between water and fat molecules that chemistry would explain very well. But I would say to move on to my trick quickly. There are many. My favorite is this:
Freezer bag and hands warm but not too hot
(if you always have them cold like me, I suggest you put them under lukewarm water for a few seconds).
Take a bag to freeze food. Put the necessary amount of butter inside it, keep the butter in the center of the pack. So it will not go into all the folds of the bag. (Trick in the trick that will prevent you from losing precious grams).
Start warming slowly with your hands until you feel soft but compact, an ointment precisely. Then slide the soft butter out of the bag with the help of both hands. That’s it, and the butter is ready.
The butter is ready, and you can use it right away to try my perfect chocolate cake. As a base to then be glazed and decorated.
Also read: how to become air traffic controller
