It's a common holiday baking aggravation: The oven is preheated; the flour, sugar and spices are all measured. That's when you come upon "softened butter" in the ingredient list — but your butter's in the fridge, hard as a rock.
In this installment of Easy Does It, food hack investigator Katie Quinn checks out several methods for softening butter and chooses the best of the bunch (hint: Step away from the microwave). See which technique worked best for Katie, then weigh in with your own butter softening techniques.