# Why should butter be cold (or soft ro melted) when baking **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 13, 2018, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-butter-be-cold-or-soft-ro-melted-when-baking/814081 "2018-05-13T03:47:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-butter-be-cold-or-soft-ro-melted-when-baking/814081/21 "2018-05-18T07:37:57Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > As I said I have very little experience baking so I am not arguing here but just trying to get it all straight in my head. > > My experience with these cookies was not flatter or flakier or more crisp. They were made to be big and gooey. Well he boiled the butter - that helps make the cookies candy-like. After that, ss near as I can see, he just wanted the cookies to go into the oven cold – so that they didn’t flatten out. ---
**Author:** ![Oly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oly/32/8255_2.png) [@Oly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oly)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-butter-be-cold-or-soft-ro-melted-when-baking/814081/22 "2018-05-18T13:04:44Z")
Nothing to add to the great posts above, just a couple FYIs. Many curious cooking questions are addressed in [this](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Food_and_Cooking) seminal book. Tip for adding cold butter for flakey goods: Freeze it first, then use a cheese grater. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-butter-be-cold-or-soft-ro-melted-when-baking/814081/23 "2018-05-18T13:25:23Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > I think it’s because if the butter is too soft you can’t cream it properly. Looking at the video, although he calls it “cold butter” after it’s been refrigerated for an hour, it doesn’t seem to be nearly as hard as butter straight from sitting in the fridge for a few days. Although I can’t tell for certain, it’s entirely possible that his “cold butter” is in fact the same consistency as butter left at room temperature to soften for 30-60 minutes. I’ve made the same recipe (Babish is awesome), and I found that the butter was rock hard after 60 minutes in the fridge. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2018, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-butter-be-cold-or-soft-ro-melted-when-baking/814081/24 "2018-05-19T02:37:31Z")
I don’t make cookies very often. Oreos are good enough for me. Besides, too many cookies don’t bode well with my diabetes. Stupid pancreas! But, biscuits? Now you’re talking my language. I freeze a stick of butter, then use a box grater to shave it into the dry ingredients when I make my cat-head buttermilk biscuits. Sometimes I grate some frozen lard in the mix, too. Use _White Lily_ flour (red winter wheat)—it makes a difference. Don’t use a rolling pin, but gently fold the dough a few times by hand before cutting. Result: high rising, super flaky biscuits. The reasons for using frozen fat in dough have been touched upon up-thread, so I won’t explain further. Just do it. It involves chemistry and quantum mechanics and astrology and lots of other high-brow subjects you struggled with in school. Just freeze your fat and shave it into your flour; you don’t need to understand why it works. Think of it as magic. Crack those cat-heads open (to the fluffy feline “brains”), pour lots of heavily peppered sausage gravy on top and boy-howdy, you’ve got yourself a lip-smacking Southern breakfast! If you don’t have time to make the gravy from scratch a good canned version will suffice (although sausage gravy is simple enough to make). But, if you don’t have time to make your biscuits from scratch, don’t bother—eat a bowl of Captain Crunch instead. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-butter-be-cold-or-soft-ro-melted-when-baking/814081.md?page=1)