{"id":1572836,"date":"2021-01-06T08:41:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-06T14:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tasteofhome.com\/?p=1572836"},"modified":"2025-01-22T04:37:54","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T10:37:54","slug":"how-to-cream-butter-and-sugar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tasteofhome.com\/article\/how-to-cream-butter-and-sugar\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Cream Butter and Sugar for Your Best Baking Yet"},"content":{"rendered":"\"Cream butter and sugar.\" This recipe step sounds simple enough, but it's so important for baking! It's a step bakers often get wrong<\/a>, too. Knowing how to cream butter and sugar the right way is key to making superior baked goods.\r\n

Why Cream Butter and Sugar?<\/h2>\r\nCreaming butter and sugar together adds pockets of air that aerate the batter. This air puffs up cakes and other homemade treats as they bake, giving them a lighter and more appealing texture.\r\n\r\nThe air is added by beating room-temperature butter with sugar on high speed. The sugar crystals become dispersed and suspended in the butter, creating tiny spaces that trap air. The longer you beat the butter and sugar, the lighter and more aerated the mixture becomes.\r\n\r\nIn cookie recipes, a longer creaming time creates a cookie that is more cake-like. Less creaming creates less air, and the cookies will be flatter and chewier.\r\n

How Long to Cream Butter and Sugar<\/h2>\r\n\"Butter-sugar\r\n\r\nYou have to cream for much <\/em>longer than most bakers expect! The majority of recipes simply ask us to \"cream butter and sugar,\" without indicating for how long.\r\n\r\nThe best results come from beating the ingredients together until the mixture is pale in color and fluffy\u2014how long this takes depends on the strength and speed of your mixer. In some cases, the step will take about 5-7 minutes, but more powerful mixers may only take 2 or 3.\r\n\r\nAs you cream the softened butter and sugar together, watch for the mixture to change. At the beginning, it looks like wet sand, with crystals of sugar visible. Then, as the creaming continues, the mixture becomes lighter with peaks.\r\n\r\nThis is the best butter to use<\/a> for homemade baked goods.\r\n

What Does \"Softened Butter\" Mean?<\/h2>\r\nSoftened or room-temperature butter should still be cool to the touch, but soft enough that when you press it you can leave an indentation. The temperature of softened butter should around 65\u00b0F. If the butter looks or feels oily, or has started to melt, it's too warm and will not be able to aerate properly.\r\n\r\nCan I used melted butter instead?<\/strong> The texture of your baked goods will not be the same as with creaming. Since there is no aeration in melted butter, cookies will be flatter and chewier. Recipes using melted butter may call for more baking soda, baking powder or as with some cakes, beaten egg whites, to give the lift that creaming would normally give.\r\n

How to Cream Butter and Sugar<\/h2>\r\nCheck your recipe for the amount of butter and sugar needed. Then, follow the steps below to properly cream them together.\r\n

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