Many baking recipes call for “softened” butter, or room temperature butter, but all you have is a hard, cold stick of butter from the fridge. The problem with microwaving butter is that the microwave can heat the butter unevenly, and tends to over-soften or even melt the butter in places. You want pliable butter for beating, not almost melting butter. So what do you do? America’s Test Kitchen has an excellent solution for us:
