So you're halfway through whipping up a dozen cupcakes for your kid's bake sale at school tomorrow when you realize you forgot a very important step: Taking the stick of butter out of the fridge to let it soften. Perfect. It's already an hour past your bedtime. But you know soft butter is key to helping the ingredients cream into batter. What can you do?
Grab your cheese grater, that's what. Shredding helps that chilly stick of butter soften up much more quickly — in a matter of minutes, actually. Plus, the ingredient is easier to blend into flour and other dry ingredients when it's already in a series of little pieces. This trick is also handy if you're making something that calls for cold butter (like a pie crust or biscuit dough) and you don't have a pastry cutter at-the-ready. There you have it. Now no foresight is necessary before playing pastry chef for the next sale — except remembering to save one of your treats as a reward for yourself. You've earned it.