Cream the Butter for Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Video Transcript

" Helen McMahon, here for Expert Village. We are ready to begin our recipe with the creaming of the butter. This is for our oatmeal raisin cookies. You can also use margarine but I think butter gives a better flavor. Two sticks which is the same as 1 cup of butter and of course that would also be the equivalent of half a pound of butter. So we will get that into a good mixing bowl and I like the Kitchen Aid Baker because I think it does a beautiful job. You want to be sure to use a strong beater for this job because it is going to require a lot of strength and you can just use a knife to break up the butter a little bit or if you take it out of the refrigerator 20 minutes or so before you start your project, then that will soften nicely. But there is no need to melt the butter. You just want to break it up somewhat so it is ready to go. That is the process known as creaming and you just continue that until the butter is a little bit soft and then we will be ready to add our sugar. You do want to remember to scrape down the sides of the bowl with a good spatula, either a rubber one or this kind; it’s a little more substantial. Just get that down into the base of the bowl from time to time. You can use your butter wrapper as a kind of place to keep your scraper and after about a minute, that should be ready to add the rest of your ingredients. "