We read through a recipe and when room temperature tags alongside the butter, it feels more like a suggestion than an actual requirement. If I beat the butter enough, it’ll soften, right? That’s what you might think, but that is not the case. Don’t put room temperature to the wayside, it is actually more important than you might think!
Unlike cold or melted butter, room-temperature butter is in the perfect Goldilocks zone. Between the temperature range of the mid-60s and the low-70s (the specific numbers vary from site to site), butter can hold a lot of air. When the batter or dough goes into the oven, the air pockets trapped in the creamed or whipped butter will expand and create a nice light consistency in cakes and the perfect chewy texture in cookies. Cakes that are too dense or cookies that spread too much generally have a culprit of using butter that’s at the incorrect temperature.
Butter that is the correct temperature will still feel cool to the touch, but it is soft, meaning you can make indentations into the butter. Room temperature butter isn’t greasy or slides around on the paper.
When looking through a recipe, usually the butter isn’t the only room temperature ingredient on that list. Many recipes for baked goods call for other ingredients like eggs, milk, or sour cream to be at room temperature. Using non-room temperature ingredients cancels out the softened quality of room temperature butter. Cold ingredients can solidify the butter and prevent the batter from blending smoothly or emulsifying and inhibit the butter from developing air pockets.
To get room temperature butter, you want the butter to stand out on the counter for a minimum of one to two hours. This may vary based on how warm or cold your kitchen is. If you are in a pinch, you can soften butter this way. Fill a heat-safe measuring cup with water and microwave it until the water in the cup boils. As the water is microwaving, prep your butter by slicing it into tablespoon-sized pats. Once the water is boiled, remove the measuring cup filled with water out of the microwave and place the plate full of the sliced butter into the microwave. The residual heat and steam from the microwaved water will soften the butter without melting it. If your recipe requires a lot of butter, make sure to use a large plate, allowing the butter to be in one even layer.
Using butter that is softened to the right degree is a game changer not just in batters and doughs, but in frostings as well.