Your friends are coming over for Sunday brunch, and you’ve decided to be ambitious and bake both scones and coffee cake. You’ve gathered your ingredients—flour, baking powder, vanilla extract—but as you reach for the unsalted butter you realize you’ve forgotten to do one crucial thing: remove the butter from the fridge to let it soften.
At first you ponder whether you’ve got enough time to let the butter sit on the counter and soften, but it’s already 9:30 a.m. and you’ve still got to run out to the market for champagne and orange juice, and your guests are set to arrive at noon. What are you to do?
Don’t panic! Grab your butter, a food storage bag, and a rolling pin, and get to work.