How to: Cream the butter and the sugar

A lot of baking requires "creaming butter and sugar" together. So, what does this *mean*? And *how* is it done?

"Creaming" the butter and the sugar means mixing or blending the two ingredients together until they take on a light, creamy texture. The purpose is to incorporate lots of air bubbles into the mixture, which ensures that your baked cake will be light and fluffy, and will rise nicely.

Food Processor Method:
Many recipes indicate that this process ought to be done with a food processor, and indeed it can be. Chop your butter into 1 inch cubes, add your sugar, and blend or pulse on low speed, using short bursts, until the two ingredients form the creamy paste we are after.

To cream by hand:
Never let anyone tell you you *need* a food processor to do this (or any other baking task, come to that.). Some people like to use a pastry cutter or a knife for this process, but here at LastPenny we prefer to use a heavy tablespoon (the oldfashioned serving kind) in a heavy old crockery bowl.

Place the sugar in your bowl, and cut the butter into slices - about 2 inches square, and each slice a quarter inch thick makes for the easiest to mix, I find, but you can use any dimension.

If using margarine, simply scoop out required amount and place in bowl.

You *can* do this with hard butter straight from the fridge, but it is much much easier and faster to do it with softened butter.

The *best* way to soften butter is to allow it to come naturally to room temperature. But it's rare we have the time to wait for that! Instead, you can place the amount of butter you want in a glass jug or bowl, and stand the container in a pan of warm water for 5 minutes. You can leave it longer if the butter is not yet soft enough, but keep an eye on it - you don't want it to start melting. Alternately, you can soften it in the microwave by giving it ten second bursts, checking after each.

Important: don't melt the butter at this stage.

Then, rub or cut the butter into the sugar. I like to "squash" the butter between my heavy spoon and heavy bowl, thus rubbing it into the sugar this way. After a few minutes, the mixing should get easier and you'll get the nice fluffy texture we're talking about!

TOP TIP: You can substitute margarine for butter, and use your choice of sugar - plain white, brown, raw, etc - and achieve the same or a similar result.