The Rule Of Thumb When It Comes To Wet Ingredients And Baking

Baking is as much a science as it is an art. The tiniest details are critical to ensuring success in the kitchen, and one of the most overlooked involves your recipe's wet ingredients. We've previously compiled 12 prepping tips you need before you even start to bake, which includes an imperative step for home baking mastery: keeping your wet ingredients at room temperature. 

Of course, by "room temperature" we actually mean around 70 degrees Fahrenheit, which is the gold standard for wet ingredients. You've likely seen a recipe call for softened, room-temperature butter. This isn't for nothing, as fats such as butter behave differently depending on their temperature. When creaming together butter and sugar, for instance, chilled, refrigerated butter is quite hard, and doesn't mix well. Melted butter, on the other hand, lacks crucial air bubbles that help the mixture become light and fluffy. At room temperature, butter is just right, with enough air bubbles to keep your baked creations upright and in shape while also being soft enough to mix with ease.

It's not just fats that perform best at room temperature, though. Cold ingredients, such as refrigerated eggs or milk can cause your batter to curdle since the low temperatures mean the batter's fat molecules solidify into tiny pieces. This prevents your batter from becoming a full emulsion, resulting in an unpleasant, separated mix. To prevent this, simply allow your wet ingredients to properly come to room temperature before baking.

The temperature of your wet ingredients can make or break your baked goods. So, how exactly do you bring your wet ingredients to room temperature before baking? For butter, simply take it out of the fridge and let it sit on the counter for 30 minutes to two hours, depending on the temperature of your kitchen. If you're in a pinch for time, you can cut the butter into small cubes. This increases the chilled butter's surface area, reducing the time for softening on the counter to just 15 minutes. Another solution is to take your cubed butter and microwave on low power for intervals of 10 seconds until softened.

When it comes to eggs, leaving them out at room temperature for short periods of time can prove effective. However, the United States Department of Agriculture warns that you shouldn't leave eggs out of the refrigerator for more than two hours. Therefore, the best ways to get eggs to room temperature involve warming them quickly. A few methods for this include placing your eggs in a bowl of warm water, running them under warm water in the sink, or placing them under a heated bowl. Like butter, you can bring dairy products like milk, cream, or buttermilk to room temperature by microwaving at low power for intervals of 10 seconds.