Butter news

This weekend I became a baking expert.  After years and years of baking, I happened to look up the difference between using melted butter or creaming the butter and found out all kinds of iformation I never knew before.  It was the science of baking.
As an example, for mixing and creaming, butter should be about 65 degrees: cold to the touch but warm enough to spread. Just three degrees warmer, at 68 degrees, it begins to melt.  For my pumpkin bread I actually checked the temperature of the butter and started the process at the correct temperature.  It used to be that I would take out my sticks of unsalted butter and let them sit out all day or overnight until I got around to beginning.  WRONG!!!

This time I cut the butter into pieces and it got to the correct temperature in a short time.

I used it to make pumpkin bread with fresh cranberries.   I added a cup of cranberries to my favorite pummpkin bread and you can find the original (hard copy) recipe here at the bottom of the page..

The next thing I looked up about butter was whether there was a certain temperature to use for creaming the butter for making frosting. I didn't see anything about temperature but I did find that the key to perfect frosting is a lot of beating.

Buttercream Frosting
   Unsalted butter
   Sifted confectioners sugar
   Milk
   Vanilla

Use 2 cups confectioners sugar for each stick of butter.
Cream butter for 2 minutes at high.  Turn down to medium and add sugar 1/2 cup at a time.  Add vanilla to taste and milk to get desired consistency.