Michelle Darmody: Baking with butter in its different guises

When baking you will notice that recipes are often very specific when it comes to butter, calling for soft or hard butter and sometimes for the butter to be melted. This is because butter behaves differently at different temperatures.

When soft butter is specified, it means butter at room temperature, thus soft to the touch. This texture is best for cakes and smooth, spongy buns as it creates tenderness and lift in the final product. Most recipes that call for soft butter will ask you to cream the butter with the sugar to add extra air bubbles into the ingredients. Air literally lifts a cake as it bakes allowing for the lightness of a sponge or the softness of a bun.

Melted butter is used for denser baking such as brownies, much of the trapped water content that naturally resides in butter is released when melted, so steam will not permeate through the batter or dough when baking, which will allow for a chewier texture. Mostly when you are using melted butter you will not be attempting to add any air to the recipe as the desired result is a dense, squidgy bake.