Butter is one of the greatest ingredients found in the kitchen. It makes toast into something we'd happily eat for breakfast. It gives cookies their delicious flavor. It does wonders to chicken. All around, it's amazing -- which is why you need butter hacks.
Because a life without butter -- for reasons you can and want to control -- is a sad way to live. And butter hacks make sure that you never have to go without. So here they are: the 7 hacks every butter lover needs to know.
1. Use the hot glass over cold butter trick to quickly soften a stick. Heat a glass of water in the microwave, toss out the water and cover the butter with the warm glass. The heat and steam from the glass will gently warm the butter to perfection.
2. Grate it when it's really cold. This is great for baked goods (especially pie crust!) that require small pieces of really cold butter. But it's also good for buttering toast without tearing the bread to pieces when you only have ice cold butter.
3. Or, if none of those ideas appeal to you, just cut the stick of butter into smaller pieces. This will help it reach room temperature faster because there's more surface area -- especially if you place it near a warming stove.
4. Quickly bring overly softened butter back to a solid. Just place the melted butter in a bowl, and place that into a bigger bowl that's filled with ice and water.
5. If you're all out of butter, make your own IN A MASON JAR. Watch this video from Sweet Paul to see how it's done.
6. Learn how to tell when butter is actually room temperature with the bending trick. If you can gently bend a stick of butter and it doesn't break, that means it's warm enough to use. If it loses its shape when you touch it, it has warmed too much. Knowing this will seriously up your baking game.
7. Buy a butter dish. Okay, this is not a hack. But seriously, having butter both at room temperature and in the fridge is the easiest way to live your best life. And a butter dish makes that possible. Just do it.
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