Creaming butter and sugar took me 15 minutes extra every batch for 6 months

I was making a double batch of chocolate chip cookies for a bake sale and noticed my dough looked grainy instead of smooth. Turns out my butter was too cold even after sitting out for an hour, so the sugar never properly dissolved. I spent 6 months wondering why my cookies were flat before I finally tested the butter temp with a thermometer and saw it was 58 degrees. How do you guys check if your butter is actually at room temp without overthinking it?

3 comments

3 Comments

grace_wright1mo ago

Oh for goodness sake. 58 degrees is cool but it's not like you were creaming frozen butter straight from the freezer. I have made plenty of decent cookies with butter that wasn't perfectly 68 degrees and they turned out fine. Maybe your baking powder was old or your oven runs hot. I am with @the_alice on this one, I think you might be overthinking the whole thing. If your cookies were flat for six months, there is a good chance it was something else going on in your recipe.

the_alice1mo ago

58 degrees? That butter was still plotting its escape.

hollyl451mo ago

Oh I feel this so hard lol. I had a similar thing happen with brownies once where I was convinced my butter was room temp but it was still cold so the chocolate seized up. Meanwhile my kitchen was also cold and I was blaming everything but the thermometer. @the_alice made me laugh with that butter plotting its escape comment because honestly mine was definitely scheming against me. I just poke the butter now with my finger if it leaves a small dent without being mushy its good enough.