Photo: E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune
Softened butter strikes a pleasing chord. What’s not to love about soft, or butter? Save celebrating the two triumphs at once.
Cold, the fridge-door staple maintains a sturdy pose. Hot, it collapses into puddle. Such miracles bring to mind the hydrologic cycle, in which water – as liquid, solid, and vapor – maintains life. As does butter.
What alchemy activates the happy medium, the golden mean? Many a cookbook suggests stranding a pound on the countertop overnight. Which works, if the kitchen is warm and the baker started baking – yesterday. Others opt for beating the chilled chunk into pliable submission.
Lacking time machine or mallet, the contemporary cook engages the microwave. Sparingly. She stands the crisply wrapped stick on the turntable, snaps the door, and twists the timer to a mere six seconds. She zaps. Prods. Repeats. In four or five rounds, the butter achieves that sublime, spreadable state that the material scientist calls amorphous solid. And the brownie baker calls perfection.