Used to cream butter and sugar for 10 minutes straight, now I just do 3

I was taught by my grandma to cream until it was pale and fluffy no matter what. But after reading about how over-creaming can deflate cookies, I tried cutting that time down to 3 minutes on my chocolate chip batch last Tuesday. Am I missing out on something or have others shortened their creaming time too?

2 comments

2 Comments

taylorellis1mo ago

Heard a pastry chef say 2-3 minutes is the sweet spot for most recipes.

wendy6281mo ago

So are we talking about mixing times or resting times? Because a lot of pastry recipes I've tried have totally different sweet spots depending on the stage you're at. Like creaming butter and sugar can take way longer than 3 minutes if your butter is cold, but overmixing a muffin batter for 30 seconds too long makes them tough. Do you think that 2-3 minutes rule is more about the resting period after you shape the dough?