Softening butter!

[WheresThatCatGoneNow]

I often take a pat of butter out of my fridge, unwrap it and place it in the butter dish.

Obviously, it's always far too hard to spread it on bread straightaway.

So! How do YOU soften it?

I'm just teally interested to hear some of your techniques!

Mine is the microwave.

But, another fascinating question is how long do you dare to leave it in the microwave before it starts melting too much?

My maximum is twenty seconds. And mine is not a powerful microwave - only 700 watts - and the butter is soft enough to spread.

Imagine what an 850 watt oven would do to a pat of butter! It would be liquid You'd have to pour it onto the bread!

So, what are your stories about softening butter?

For baking, or when you need a decent amount softened quickly, just cube it up and drop into a bowl of room temp water. Will be perfectly soft in under a minute with no rancid melty bits.

20 seconds in the microwave sounds like madness to me. I put it in there for 8-10 seconds which is more than enough.

@MyBottomDecides

Use a sharp vegetable knife to slice off a very thin sheet of the hard butter and lie it on the bread.

Or a cheese slicer!

We get it to but it is not butter!

Our is - pretty sure you aren't allowed to advertise something as 100% Pure Butter if it's not! It's triple churned I believe to help make it softer.

Get a butter curler

Mary Berry has a tip for softening butter for cake making which I've been using with great success. Cut the butter into 2 cm cubes and put into a bowl of tepid/lukewarm water for 10 minutes. Fish out the butter with a slotted spoon - it's soft enough for creaming or spreading.

By grating it, I saw that tip on a cooking show years ago and it’s great.

We buy spreadable for sandwiches etc. but when I need soft butter for baking I use the defrost function on our oven - softens without melting. Our microwave seems to melt the butter into liquid from the middle outwards!

@QueenAnnesHat

Mary Berry has a tip for softening butter for cake making which I've been using with great success. Cut the butter into 2 cm cubes and put into a bowl of tepid/lukewarm water for 10 minutes. Fish out the butter with a slotted spoon - it's soft enough for creaming or spreading.

Do you literally put the unwrapped cubes of butter directly into the water? Don’t they end up all soggy?

Butter onto dish over the toaster or on the grill. Takes a few seconds

@TibetanTerrah

Two butter dishes and rotate them so one always has soft butter

This

Get the President or M n S softer butter. They are just butter, whipped with air. Revolutionary.

Buy a butter dish, with lid.
Put butter in the butter dish.
Put in cupboard.
Then it is always spreadable.
Why do you keep it in the fridge? The whole point of a butter dish, is to keep the butter at room temperature so it is spreadable. Stop putting your butter dish in the fridge. It’ll keep for ages in the dish!

I keep butter in a butter dish, not in the fridge, and even then it’s not always soft enough to spread or use in baking. Some of you must have really hot houses!

@FormerBoardingSchoolTeacher

The only ingredients in my spreadable butter are butter and salt.

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/277734139?preservedReferrer=www.google.co.uk" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> President butter is also spreadable straight from the fridge.

Did you buy the Losely butter recently?

We used to buy the softer butter from Home Bargains but they haven't had it the last couple of times I've been in.

We've also had Losely from Morrisons but that wasn't on the website and I thought it might have been discontinued.

In the end I got the M&S softer butter because even keeping normal butter at room temperature doesn't make it soft enough to use.

@ChessieFL Yes unwrapped! The butter's fat, so doesn't mix with the water

my recipe requires 4 oz of butter - it goes in the microwave for 14 seconds - possibly a bit soft for spreading but mine is for baking.

Waitrose has Le President soft butter in a tub from France - delicious as it has more cream

I use a French butter dish like . I came across these in a similar thread years ago. They work very well apart from a couple of days in the summer when there is a heatwave - I pop it in the fridge for those few days.

I love President but it's still too hard to spread. I leave butter out all year.

Rarely need to as it lives in a butter dish on the side because no one except me puts it away in the cupboard. But on moving to a new block that's been stored in the fridge, either heat the knife for spreading on bread, cut a lump off and put between 2 slices of hot toast before spreading, or in the microwave for a bit for baking. How long for depends on how much I need!

@Boscoforever

Buy a butter dish, with lid. Put butter in the butter dish. Put in cupboard. Then it is always spreadable. Why do you keep it in the fridge? The whole point of a butter dish, is to keep the butter at room temperature so it is spreadable. Stop putting your butter dish in the fridge. It’ll keep for ages in the dish!

They have a butter dish. They are talking about replenishment of 🧈 in said butter dish. So the new butter comes from the fridge to the butter dish and at that moment in time it is too hard to spread.

OP I use the defrost setting in the microwave - probably about 20-40 seconds depending on whether I’m spreading something hard or something soft.

Occasinally when baking i have melted some of the butter completely in a pan then added it back in with cubed hard butter in a bowl and blended it with my hand mixer thoroughly. It works if you want soft butter for creaming with sugar if you are making a sponge.

@Nydj

I use a French butter dish like . I came across these in a similar thread years ago. They work very well apart from a couple of days in the summer when there is a heatwave - I pop it in the fridge for those few days.

I've never even heard of this! Thank you for sharing.

Sadly I don't think I can use it as I live on the tropical north coast of Australia... I imagine something like this isn't designed to keep your butter fresh for 3 weeks when the ambient temperature is about 40°c... But if I ever move back to England I will be buying one of these straight away!

I only use butter for baking. I don’t do microwaves so I heat mine in the radiator for about five mins

Or Bain Marie

Butter bell: www.amazon.co.uk/Butter-Bell-Original-Tremain-Collection/dp/B01BLXFK7C?th=1&tag=mumsnetforu03-21