Wooden spoon advice....

[AngieT]

I've just made a Christmas cake for the first time in years. I prefer to use a wooden spoon but I'm finding it gives me blisters on the palm of my hand by the time I've finished creaming the butter & sugar. Does anyone know if you can get a wooden spoon that has a padded handle?

 

[Norcalbaker59]

I've just made a Christmas cake for the first time in years. I prefer to use a wooden spoon but I'm finding it gives me blisters on the palm of my hand by the time I've finished creaming the butter & sugar. Does anyone know if you can get a wooden spoon that has a padded handle?

Congratulations on your first Christmas cake!

I don’t know about a padded handled wooden spoon. But a wooden spoon is not the best tool to cream butter by hand. The resistance of the spoon bowl against the butter makes for extra effort. And the bowl of the spoon is not going to aerate the butter.

The purpose of creaming butter is to provide mechanical leavening. So the butter needs to be aerated.

I cream a lot of butter by hand during the holiday season because I make a lot of shortbread.

You can save your hands and better aerate the butter by using a whisk and then a fork

1. Use very soft butter. I take my butter out of the fridge the night before. The butter should be as soft as very thick whipped cream.
2. Use a whisk to fluff up the butter.
3. Sprinkle 1/3 of the sugar over the butter. Do not pour in over the butter in one spot
4. Use a fork and rake the sugar into the sugar is no longer visible.
5. Repeat sprinkling the sugar over butter and raking it in with the fork.
6. After add sugar is added, I use the fork to beat the butter in a motion similar to beating eggs. Just enough to fluff the butter up again.

 

[ChesterV]

Use some tight gloves that have either leather or some form of grip substance on the inside of the palm/fingers.

Isotoner gloves used to make really good form fitting, tight gloves with grips on the inside. I don't know if they still do, but they are great.

I don't know what brand of glove this is, but they are nylon with imprinted grip on the inside.
Think and tight, so they don't slip.

 

[AngieT]

Thank you both for your replies. They are really helpful.

 

[-Daniel-]

I barely ever cream butter and sugar by hand, for me it goes in the mixer. (I hate manual whisking, it's a skill I never managed).