Carla Hall's Easy Trick For Saving Over-Softened Butter
Carla Hall first became a household name while appearing on the fifth season of Bravo's "Top Chef." She won over the audience with her quirky personality and upbeat attitude, and her career flourished after the show. According to Food Network, Hall went on to host daytime television's "The Chew" and "Holiday Baking Championship." Hall is a trained chef and author of many cookbooks, and is part of several charities and non-profit organizations. With a philosophy to always cook with love, what's not to like about the famous chef?
Hall has given us a wealth of information such as cooking tips, recipes, and ingredient preferences. Still, her butter hack may be the best tip yet. If you bake often, you know that cold ingredients help create beautifully baked goods. Quite often, though, the challenge is how to keep the butter firm during the mixing process, from start to finish. Next time you're in the kitchen, try Hall's butter hack for amazingly flaky biscuits.
How Carla Hall prevents butter from softening
Hall revealed her tip for preventing butter from becoming too soft in her Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits class on the Food Network Kitchen app. In her class, she said that she loves biscuits, and they're one of the first things she learned how to make. Perhaps this is the reason why she has perfected her recipe.
The famous chef said that during the baking process, she reserves one stick of butter in the freezer, and on the counter, she keeps more butter at room temperature. In regards to room temperature butter, Hall told Distractify, "Most people do not make good cookies because their butter is too soft. Room temperature butter is technically at 68 degrees, you can bend the butter and it keeps its shape. If you can put your finger through the butter, very easy it just squashes, it's too soft."
The Food Network says that if the butter begins to feel like it's softening during your baking process, stop what you're doing, drop the butter into the dry ingredients, and roll it around. When the butter feels dry instead of melty, you can resume whatever you were doing. If the butter shreds into the mix, don't worry. The extra cold butter pieces result in flakier biscuits, which are extra buttery and delicious!