Baking trials: What's the best way to soften butter quickly?
And does it involve your microwave?
![Finger pressing into one of three sticks of softened butter](https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/sites/default/files/styles/featured_image/public/2023-09/soften-butter-quickly.jpg?itok=E9Uv5L4Y)
You need softened butter — and you need it now. Do you risk it all and microwave it? Do you rearrange your schedule and wait hours for it to come to room temperature on the counter? Or do you try another hack: a hot water bath or a DIY butter sauna or more?
Countless tips, tricks, and techniques abound to soften butter fast. Some are worth it, and some aren’t. We tested them all to find the best way to soften butter quickly. But first …
The best way to tell if butter is perfectly soft is by pressing your finger into it. It should feel like clay — you’re easily able to press an indent, but it has some resistance. The butter should not be greasy, and your finger shouldn’t be able to press all the way through the butter to the surface underneath — if that’s the case, it’s too hot.
Butter typically needs to be soft when creaming with sugar. During this step, sugar is whipped into the butter, creating little pockets of air from the sugar crystals that lighten and aerate the butter. This translates to pockets of air in the final baked good, which results in fluffier, taller bakes.
If the butter is too cold while creaming, the sugar won’t be able to create air pockets effectively and baked goods will be more dense; if the butter is too hot (and thus too soft), it will not hold its shape and be able to support a network of air pockets from the sugar, again making the baked good dense.
Butter also needs to be soft for other baking steps, like coating flour in a cake made using the reverse-creaming method. If the butter is too hard, it won’t be able to blend into the flour; too soft and it will make the flour mixture greasy. Similar principles apply to making buttercreams or enriched breads, in which you need to beat soft butter into a mixture. It has to hold its shape but blend easily and emulsify into the mixture.
All tests were done using Land O Lakes unsalted butter in a 73°F kitchen. Note that different temperatures and butters with different water content will result in slightly varied time ranges for each of these methods.
First, the classic method, used here as a control:
To speed up softening on the countertop, some bakers recommend slicing your butter to expose more surface area and bring it to room temperature more quickly:
Other bakers laud different hacks that create a warm environment for butter to quickly soften. We tried those out:
And then there’s the microwave. Everyone says you shouldn’t microwave your butter to soften it, but are they just being dramatic?
That’s right: After testing, our favorite method involves microwaving butter, but in a very specific way. It has to be placed vertically, which exposes more surface area and results in even softening, without patches of hot and cold spots. And it all takes less than 20 seconds, so you can pick a recipe and start baking within minutes.
Note: All microwaves are different, so play around with a few seconds more or less to determine the perfect setting for your butter. These tests were conducted in a 1000-watt microwave.
If you don’t have access to a microwave, we recommend slicing butter and leaving it on the counter. You can use the 30 minutes or so it takes to soften to prepare your mise en place and get organized to bake.
And remember, if you accidentally go too far with any of these methods and end up with butter that’s halfway to melting, we have several recipes that call for melted butter. Try Melted Butter Pie Crust, Crumpets, or Rye Chocolate Chip Cookies. And if your plans change and you’re wondering if you can put softened butter back in the fridge — we’ve got the answer here.
Cover photo by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Kaitlin Wayne.
January 22, 2024 at 8:51pm
Isn't your picture wrong? It says vertical, but the butter is laying horizontal?
February 2, 2024 at 11:30am
In reply to Isn't your picture wrong? It… by kelly (not verified)
Hi Kelly, this did confuse a lot of folks! The butter was placed vertically in the microwave, but placed horizontally for the photo so that it could be poked properly.
January 7, 2024 at 2:23pm
I now live in Asheville, NC. Previously, I lived in Connecticut. I'm finding with the sea level being different, my breads, etc aren't rising as well as they did in CT. My daughter-in-law suggested that I increase the oven temperature by 25 degrees. Do you agree?
January 12, 2024 at 3:16pm
In reply to I now live in Asheville, NC… by Linda Borio (not verified)
Hi Linda, our High-Altitude Baking Guide has some suggestions for adjusting your bread baking, although increasing the baking temperature isn't one of them. One thing I've noticed from my moves across the country, is that baking in a different oven can also make for a challenging baking experience. For oven-related changes, I would begin by purchasing an inexpensive oven thermometer and preheating your oven for a full 30 minutes. If the temperature reading on the thermometer doesn't match up with your desired temperature, adjusting the oven dial accordingly and waiting for the thermometer to read the correct temperature may be helpful.
October 21, 2023 at 11:01pm
I have trick for softening butter. I place the still wrapped sticks in a baking dish and loosely wrap with an electric heating pad on low heat. Usually takes about 20 mins.
October 19, 2023 at 9:54pm
Grating the butter onto a plate has it soft by the time you finish grating it.
October 19, 2023 at 10:35am
Is there a particular temperature you might check for in a stick of softened butter?
October 21, 2023 at 9:15am
In reply to Is there a particular… by Debra Elliott (not verified)
Hi Debra! Room temperature butter is going to measure somewhere between 65 to 70 degrees F. Happy Baking!
October 18, 2023 at 9:39pm
You say vertical under the picture of what I think is a horizontal placement? I am confused.
October 22, 2023 at 10:37am
In reply to You say vertical under the… by Jan Potter (not verified)
Hi Jan, this photo is a bit confusing. The "vertical" label indicates the orientation of the butter when placed in the microwave, but it needed to be placed horizontally in order to be able to press a finger into it.
Pagination