Raise your hand if you’ve ever been the victim of a cold stick of butter when you want to make cookies on a whim. As the saying goes, if you’re not cutting corners in the kitchen, you’re doing it wrong. (No one says that. But we’re all thinking it, right?) Even Jennifer Garner isn’t immune. But thankfully, she has a solution to that problem, which she shared on her Instagram over the weekend.
She captioned her post, “My daughter says if I ever go to court they’ll make me take my oath on a stack of cookbooks. If so, @cooksillustrated would be in there, for sure. So I took their butter softening idea to [heart emoji]. #doesthiscountasalifehack?”
In the short video, she shows us her trick (courtesy of the kitchen geniuses at Cook’s Illustrated):
Step one: Procure a stick of cold, hard butter from your fridge.
Step two: Fill a drinking glass with hot water and let it warm up for 20 seconds.
Step three: Pour the water out and cover the butter with the glass. Let it hang out for ten minutes.
Step four: Revel in your softened butter and kitchen skills.
We’ll definitely be trying this trick at home, and not just because it’s Jennifer Garner’s favorite method. We didn’t have to scroll far through the comments to see that not only did Cook’s Illustrated say, “We love your style @jennifer.garner,” but none other than INA GARTEN gave it her seal of approval. All she said was, “Love this so much!!” but that’s good enough for us.
Another day, another “Pretend Cooking Show” episode. Somebody give this woman a cable deal already.
