How to Quickly Bring Ingredients to Room Temperature

In a baking recipe, you’ll often see that certain ingredients (like butter, milk, eggs, and other dairy ingredients) need to be at room temperature before you get started. Organically, it takes 1-2 hours of leaving ingredients out on the counter before they reach room temperature, which is anywhere between 65- 68ºF (18-20ºC). If you didn’t account for that in your recipe timing, fear not! This blog post shares how to bring common dairy ingredients to room temperature quickly so you don’t have to panic if you didn’t plan ahead. 

Why Do Some Ingredients Need to be at Room Temperature? 

Baking is a science, and there are very sciency explanations behind why some ingredients need to be at room temperature to have success with a recipe. Here are three of the most important benefits of using room temperature ingredients:

• Easier to Mix. When every ingredient is room temperature, everything mixes more evenly. Particularly, room temperature fats like butter bond more readily with eggs and sugar, which is important for emulsification and aeration. Room temperature liquids (like the milk added at the end of a cake recipe) help create a smoother, more velvety batter than cold liquids which can curdle the batter. 
• Proper Aeration for a Light and Fluffy Texture. The creaming process in a baking recipe is really important for creating a light and fluffy texture in the final bake. Room temperature butter creams together with sugar much easier, helping trap air pockets (aka aeration) and thus creating that light and fluffy texture. Room temperature eggs also emulsify more easily, which is important for a fluffy structure. 
• Creating an Even Rise. If the entire batter is room temperature, it’s going to rise much more evenly than a batter that has colder pockets. Cold batter is also less likely to have properly aerated, which means less of a rise and more baking time in general. 

How to Bring Ingredients to Room Temperature Quickly

Now that we know why it’s important to bring ingredients to room temperature when the recipe calls for it, here are some quicker ways to do it:

Butter

It’s very tempting to put butter in the microwave to soften it, but for best results I don’t recommend it. The microwave can easily overheat the butter or the heating can end up really uneven (like having a melted middle of the stick). And when your butter is too soft, it can lead to your cake sinking in the middle in the baking process. Instead, I recommend either:

• Cut the butter into cubes. Smaller cubes of butter soften way quicker than an entire stick. If you cut the butter into cubes at the beginning of your recipe prep, they should be softened in about 30 minutes. You’ll know they’re ready when you can easily press a finger into a cube and indent it. 
• The bowl method. Lay however many sticks of butter your recipe calls for out on a flat surface. Find a glass bowl that will easily fit over the sticks of butter, then fill the bowl with very hot water. Let the water sit in the bowl for 5 minutes, then pour it out and dry the bowl. Place the hot bowl upside down over the sticks of butter and they will soften to room temperature in about 5 minutes. 

You’ll know the butter is perfectly room temperature when you can easily press your finger into it and create a clean indent without your finger sinking into it. It will be cool to the touch yet pliable, with a matte (not shiny or greasy) finish, and a thermometer inserted into the stick should read between 65- 68ºF (18-20ºC).

Eggs

There’s only one quick way to bring eggs to room temperature, and I use this hack all the time. Find a bowl that’s deep enough to submerse the eggs and fill it with warm (not hot) water with the eggs inside. Let the eggs sit in the warm water for 5-10 minutes and they’ll be room temperature.

For egg whites, I like to measure them out into a measuring cup, then place the measuring cup into a separate bowl of warm water. 

Milk

After measuring your milk into a measuring cup, microwave it in 5-10 second increments, stirring and testing the temperature after each one. If you have a really small amount of milk (like a few tablespoons for a buttercream recipe), be extra careful not to overheat. If you do end up making the milk too warm you can always bring the temperature back down by mixing in some cold milk and re-measuring. 

Sour Cream

I also warm sour cream in the microwave in the same way. Measure it into a microwave safe bowl and heat for 5-10 seconds. Stir and test the temperature, then repeat if necessary. I find that sour cream usually heats pretty quickly.  

Cream Cheese

Cut the cream cheese into cubes and it will soften in 20-30 minutes, even faster if you place the cubes on your stove top while the oven is preheating. 

Refrigerated Ganache, Fruit Purèes, Salted Caramel, Etc. 

For ingredients that have been refrigerated overnight that now need to be mixed into a buttercream or used as a cake filling, gently heat them in the microwave in 5-10 second increments, stirring after each one until the correct temperature and/or consistency is reached. For ganache cake fillings this means the consistency of creamy peanut butter, for fruit pureès it will mean it feels like room temperature when you stick your finger in to test, and for salted caramel it will be thick and spreadable but not hot. 

I hope you find some helpful hacks for bringing your ingredients to room temperature when you’re making my cake recipes or any baking recipes! I promise it makes a world of difference. Let me know if there are any ingredient hacks I missed in the comments section below.