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On February third I described a way I can warm butter to 68 degrees or higher without danger of melting it, when room temperature is 68 degrees. I just had a little "accident" with my batch of cookies I was putting together (I added salted instead of unsalted butter!) and so I thought I might as well show a picture of my "butter boat" method instead of waiting for a redo of my baking effort this afternoon to create a post today.
I have to say up front, this method is a little bit of a pain with four sticks of butter. But it's a lot faster than leaving the butter sitting out on the table - that literally takes hours when the ambient temperature is the same temperature you are trying to get the butter to, which is often the case in winter months. The idea is to use luke-warm water to warm the butter. I put water in the sink, and use my instant thermometer to measure its temperature. The amount of water isn't terribly important, as long as it's enough to go well up the sides of the mixing bowl. I aim for a water temperature around 75 degrees - I'm not sure exactly what's the ideal temperature, but it probably depends on exactly what the room temperature is and exactly how much water I put into the sink, so that's a question for future generations to answer. I cut each stick of butter into about 10 or 12 slices and plaster the bottom and sides of the mixing bowl with the butter. I press each piece against the sides of the bowl to make sure there is good contact. Then I place the bowl in the water. My bowl actually floats very nicely like that, which is why I call it a "butter boat". :-) After some time, maybe an hour or so, the butter will have warmed to somewhere between 68 and 71 degrees, depending on exactly what the room temperature is. It would probably warm faster with a stainless steel mixing bowl, because a glass bowl isn't that great a heat conductor. On the other hand, that would be more likely to warm the butter touching the bowl to a higher temperature than I want, so it might not work as well. Or it might, if the water temperature was just barely above the butter temperature I'm aiming for.
It's a little difficult to measure the temperature of the butter with my instant thermometer when it's spread out like this. I have to stack it up about three inches high to take its temperature, and it's a good thing I'm only warming the butter to 68-69 degrees or trying to stack the little slices like pancakes would be like trying to catch a greased pig, if you can imagine. But it works OK.
Waiting for butter to warm is a lot like watching grass grow. You just have to find something else to do!
I have to say up front, this method is a little bit of a pain with four sticks of butter. But it's a lot faster than leaving the butter sitting out on the table - that literally takes hours when the ambient temperature is the same temperature you are trying to get the butter to, which is often the case in winter months. The idea is to use luke-warm water to warm the butter. I put water in the sink, and use my instant thermometer to measure its temperature. The amount of water isn't terribly important, as long as it's enough to go well up the sides of the mixing bowl. I aim for a water temperature around 75 degrees - I'm not sure exactly what's the ideal temperature, but it probably depends on exactly what the room temperature is and exactly how much water I put into the sink, so that's a question for future generations to answer. I cut each stick of butter into about 10 or 12 slices and plaster the bottom and sides of the mixing bowl with the butter. I press each piece against the sides of the bowl to make sure there is good contact. Then I place the bowl in the water. My bowl actually floats very nicely like that, which is why I call it a "butter boat". :-) After some time, maybe an hour or so, the butter will have warmed to somewhere between 68 and 71 degrees, depending on exactly what the room temperature is. It would probably warm faster with a stainless steel mixing bowl, because a glass bowl isn't that great a heat conductor. On the other hand, that would be more likely to warm the butter touching the bowl to a higher temperature than I want, so it might not work as well. Or it might, if the water temperature was just barely above the butter temperature I'm aiming for.
It's a little difficult to measure the temperature of the butter with my instant thermometer when it's spread out like this. I have to stack it up about three inches high to take its temperature, and it's a good thing I'm only warming the butter to 68-69 degrees or trying to stack the little slices like pancakes would be like trying to catch a greased pig, if you can imagine. But it works OK.
Waiting for butter to warm is a lot like watching grass grow. You just have to find something else to do!
Hard, cold butter softens nicely in the microwave (about 10 seconds per stick at full power in mine).
ReplyDeleteI've read that softening in the microwave risks melting it, but it does seem like 10 seconds isn't going to overheat it. I'm sure it never does for you. However, I know that butter in the microwave heats really unevenly, for some reason. When it really gets too warm, it's not like one second it's a stick, and the next it's liquid butter. But more importantly, it's not like it gets softer at an equal rate throughout. For my experiments, I need to heat the butter to some controlled temperature, and it would be awfully hard to get every bit of the stick to the right temperature at the same time from heating it in the microwave. The microwave might be great to bring it to, say, 50 degrees. Parts might be 45 degrees, and parts might be 60. But then I still have to wait for the temperature to equalize throughout, or I could beat it to get the average temperature, but then I still would have to wait for it to get to 68-69 degrees. I think people should do what works for them in their kitchen, but I have to be careful about what I'm doing when I'm looking at something that may change a little depending on butter being one or two degrees warmer or cooler. Thanks for the recommendation, though!
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