Hello Old Friend

Semi-solid, or room temperature butter is used almost exclusively for the “creaming” method in baking. Also known as the ‘sugar shortening’ method, it is the process of mixing the butter and sugar at the beginning of many classic and well-known recipes. Due to butter’s semi-solid consistency air bubbles are trapped within the butter when beaten with the sugar. This trapped air then expands when heated to create that magical rise during baking. By trapping this air with other ingredients such as the eggs and flour in the cake batter, we are left with a delightfully light sponge texture once baked, the side of baking which never fails to feel like the best science experiment ever.

Typical uses of the creaming method:

• Pound cake recipes (equal quantities of butter, sugar, flour and eggs)

• Frangipanes

• Cupcakes 

• Buttercream recipes (classic and cream cheese frosting)

• Cookies with the aim of creating a soft cake-like texture  

 By including my version of these baking classics, the next section we will showcase why this method has become popular for its simplicity whilst also yielding magical results. And while these may not be the most ground breaking recipes, it is ground that needs to be covered so that we are able to THINK BEYOND this use of butter later on in the book. We cannot bend rules unless we know them, are intimate with them.