Life Hack: Can you soften butter straight out of a fridge with just a hot glass?

Does this actually work? We put it to the test

This could change my lazy baking ways

I’ve lost count of the times I’ve needed to use room-temperature butter in a recipe only to realise I didn’t take it out of the fridge earlier that day.

Normally I’m faced with two choices: wait for the butter to soften, which realistically means the baking doesn't happen, or heat the butter. I don’t know about most people but I struggle to time a microwave correctly for this so instead of soft butter I almost always end up with liquified butter and I don't want to mess a pan for just this.

After scrolling through TikTok one day, a user described her method for softening butter straight out of a fridge and it seemed too good to be true so I had to put it to the test.

Lindsay Roggenbuck’s video details her method. First, boil some water. Pour it water into a glass before emptying it once the surface temperature increases. Place your butter on a plate and use the heated glass to cover the stick of butter. Leave it for a few minutes and remove the glass.

She says you’re left with softened butter, perfect for using on bread or in your baking.

When I say I ran to the kettle to try this, I’m not lying. I filled the kettle and waited for it to boil - much like timing the microwave, I seem to only boil enough water to make tea for an entire family.

I used a pint glass since Lindsay’s stick of butter seemed quite thin compared to the standard one in my fridge. I also added a spoon to prevent the glass from shattering.

After about a minute, grabbed an oven glove and emptied the water into the sink. I flipped the glass and placed it over the butter and since she said it took “just a couple of minutes” I decided to wait two minutes before removing the glass.

To touch, the block of butter still felt cold so I immediately had my doubts about the method. There were some slight traces of melted butter on the inside of the packaging but when I used my knife to scrape some off, it barely yielded to it.

Determined not to give in, I tried again. I filled the glass right up to the rim and, when empty, placed it over the butter for five minutes. There was a lot more condensation on the wrapper this time and when I opened it, it had worked!

I’m no physicist, but I think much of the difference in results stems from the slim blocks of butter in the original video compared to the hefty offerings in Irish supermarkets, which is why I increased the time it spent under the glass to balance the size of the portion.