Kitchen Tip

Use a cheese grater for easier spreading of cold, hard butter. When you are buttering bread, pastries, etc., it is difficult when the butter is hard. Rather than waiting for the butter to soften, you can quickly solve the problem with a cheese grater. Grate the butter over whatever you are making. This process generates a little bit of heat and the smaller pieces of butter will melt faster and spread better when they hit a warm piece of toast or while mixing dough for pastries.