How to Cut In Butter: 5 Ways to Mix Butter and Flour

Cutting in butter means working small pieces of cold butter into the dry ingredients of a baking recipe. Cooks and bakers do this to produce a flaky texture, and it’s a common method for recipes for scones, biscuits, and pie crusts. Cutting butter into dry ingredients—for example, flour and salt—creates pockets of butter, which melt as the pastry bakes. The resulting air pockets create a flaky pie crust or flaky pastry. Recipes for cookie dough, muffins, and cakes don’t call for cutting in the butter.

Cutting butter into dry ingredients is a key step in many recipes, and there are a handful of ways to do it. The specific recipe, the volume of ingredients, and your personal preferences determine the method you should choose.

1. 1. Use butter knives: Add the cold butter to the flour mixture. Then take two butter knives from a normal cutlery set. With a knife in each hand, cut the butter into small pieces, pulling the knives through the butter in opposite directions and away from each other as you cut. Continue until the whole mixture is crumbly and the butter is the size of peas or smaller.
2. 2. Use a food processor: Add all the dry ingredients to the bowl of a food processor. Then add the pieces of butter, secure the top on the food processor, and pulse it until the butter and flour combine to create coarse crumbs.
3. 3. Use your hands: Add the butter to the flour and work the ingredients into each other with your hands. Your body heat will begin to warm up the butter, so if it starts to become too soft, pop the mixture into the refrigerator to keep the butter as cold as possible. Alternatively, chill the mixture after you finish cutting in the butter to firm up again.
4. 4. Use a pastry blender: Also known as a pastry cutter, a pastry blender is a tool specifically for cutting butter into flour. It has curved rows of sharp blades that cut the butter into small pieces and help you mix it with the flour.
5. 5. Use a stand mixer: Add the flour and butter to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Run the mixer on a low speed until the butter breaks up and the flour is crumbly. Avoid overmixing the ingredients, as it will result in a tough pastry dough.

Whether you’re making flaky biscuits or classic scones, the tips below give you the best chance of ending up with a flaky finished product:

1. 1. Cut the butter into cubes first. Trying to work a full stick of butter or even pats (tablespoon-sized slices) into flour is difficult. Cut the butter into small cubes first to help you mix the butter into the flour.
2. 2. Freeze the butter. After cutting your butter into small pieces, place it in the freezer before you plan to use it. This helps keep the butter cold for longer while you cut it into the flour.
3. 3. Grate the butter beforehand. As an alternative to freezing small cubes of butter, you can freeze an entire stick of butter and then use a cheese grater to grate the frozen butter into shreds.

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