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?

I keep salted butter in a butter dish in the the kitchen, so its room temperature and usually ok to spread.

For baking, I try to remember to put the butter on a plate in the airing cupboard a few hours beforehand. It doesn't melt, but reaches a very soft, beatable consistency.

I microwave it on the defrost setting. How long I do it for depends on how much butter.

If it's a whole 250g pack, I find it's better if you stop it half way through and turn the butter upside down.

I cut a slice off and microwave for 10 seconds. My butter is only soft enough to spread at room temperature during the summer

Any spreadable "butter" is processed to shit and will very likely contain more ingredients than butter+salt. Depending on the food labelling laws, a lot of ultra processed over priced unnatural foodstuffs can fool people into thinking there's only 2 ingredients.

Butter wizard alfille.co.uk/. Been using these for 25 years. Amazing things.

@BarbaraofSeville, Did you buy the Losely butter recently?

No, actually I got it out of the freezer last week. I can’t remember where I bought it originally. Probably Waitrose when they had free delivery, but they don’t seem to sell it now.

@AuntTwacky

Buy spreadable

M&S Softer Butter is all butter, no oil or cream. It isn't as soft as some of the other shite but it's pretty good. Having said that, we hit back from a week away last night and the tub was in the fridge. Contrary to my knife scraping advice above, I dug out a chunk and put it on the side of the plate. By the time I'd got my tea and dropped my arse into the couch, it was soft enough

@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.

Butter (Milk), Single Cream (Milk), Salt (1.3%), Cultures

ie not butter - that's the tesco one.

I don't. I use spreadable butter

I make sure there’s always enough butter in the dish. If it’s running low I replace before I need it so there’ll be sufficient by the time we want to use it again.

Pour boiling water into a glass and leave for a few minutes. Empty the water out and the glass should now be hot. Put sone butter and plate and the glass upside down over it for a few nminutes.

@sashh, my pictures probably were too small to read.

You quoted me

“The only ingredients in my spreadable butter are butter and salt.
President butter is also spreadable straight from the fridge.”

and you added

“Butter (Milk), Single Cream (Milk), Salt (1.3%), Cultures
ie not butter - that's the tesco one”

But “ my” butter, ie the M&S and the Loseley Farm ones pictured, do contain only butter and salt. Perhaps these pictures are better.

I mentioned the President one as an alternative, in case OP can’t find the ones I use. Spreadable butter without the addition of vegetable oil can often be hard to find.

Any spreadable "butter" is processed to shit and will very likely contain more ingredients than butter+salt. Depending on the food labelling laws, a lot of ultra processed over priced unnatural foodstuffs can fool people into thinking there's only 2 ingredients.

So you are an expert on spreadable butter worldwide are you?

Defrost microwave option.

It lives on the kitchen counter so only a problem on hit summer days when it needs to going the fridge.

@Luredbyapomegranate

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

I think President has extra cream in it

my granny kept a dish of butter curls on the mantlepiece. They were always spreadable!

@SquirrelG

Any spreadable "butter" is processed to shit and will very likely contain more ingredients than butter+salt. Depending on the food labelling laws, a lot of ultra processed over priced unnatural foodstuffs can fool people into thinking there's only 2 ingredients.

So you are an expert on spreadable butter worldwide are you?

Damn, I've outed myself! I am, yes.

I just use a hot knife.

Spreadable butter, even the sort that only contains butter and salt, is very processed- www.roadshow.org/content/resources/NZscientists/illingworthNorris.php#:~:text=Spreadable%20butter%20is%20made%20from,to%20spread%20at%20fridge%20temperature.

I keep it at room temperature except in high summer.

A butter bell.

I also keep the butter out all the time. Gets used pretty quickly though to be fair.

@SpanishPapers, interesting article, thank you.