TikTok's Restaurant Butter Hack Makes Spreading So Much Easier

Plate of bread and butter

Dining out can be a special experience on its own. After all, you get to don your finest attire, spend quality time with family and friends, and enjoy some delicious fare. The best part, however, are the freebies that some restaurants tend to give out. Let’s be honest — one of the major reasons you go feast out at restaurants is for their warm, pillowy bread.

Some major restaurants are known for offering free plates of bread. Olive Garden is famous for its breadsticks, Ruby Tuesday and Red Lobster for their biscuits, Texas Roadhouse for its bread rolls, and Cheesecake Factory for its baguette and brown bread.

For many, bread is a restaurant staple and an early indicator of the experience one will have. While you may hope the basket of delicacy that is bread and butter will come out warm, sometimes that isn’t the case. There are many life hacks that dominate TikTok, but this one particular hack can be quite useful when dining out. Trying to spread cold butter onto lukewarm bread is a recipe for disaster, but using a fork, can help make the task mess-free.

Stick A Fork In It

Knife with butter on top of a slice of bread

Nothing can ruin a night out like hard, cold butter. Things can turn sour, especially at restaurants, when the basket of fresh, warm baked bread is accompanied by cold packets of butter. It can be a nuisance when trying to spread onto a piece of bread and it ends up in a clumpy mess, or worse tearing through your bread.

Did you know there’s an easy way to transfer cold butter onto bread using just a fork? A viral TikTok video that has garnered a whopping 15 million views and more than 385,000 likes demonstrates how to seamlessly spread butter. Gently stab a fork into a butter packet. Squeeze the packet onto the piece of bread or toast, and voila, spirals of butter will land onto your piece of bread. Now, it’s easier to spread the butter chunks without fuss.

“Wow!!! This is life changing,” commented one impressed viewer. A majority of people in the comments were taken by the hack. One particular user was so mind-blown, they expressed that the person was living in the future.

Other Hacks For Spreadable Butter

Grated butter next to a grater

Although the fork hack can make spreading butter so much easier, some people have pointed out under the TikTok video that it could be wasteful. “45% of the butter wasted,” one user commented.

If the idea of squeezing butter makes you squeamish, there are other ways to warm up butter in restaurants. Use natural heat by cupping the butter packet in the palms of your hands. Holding the butter for about 10 seconds can help soften the butter up enough to turn it spreadable.

Of course, the problem with cold butter doesn’t only exist when dining out. It also can be troublesome and time-consuming trying to spread cold butter when you’re craving toast at the comfort of your home. TikToker @krisslovesfood, demonstrates an easy butter hack using a common kitchen utensil. In the video, a grater is used to finely grate butter on toast. Just like a fork, a grater transforms butter into smaller pieces that can be easily spread. Don’t have a grater? Another TikTok hack swaps out a grater for a vegetable peeler. When dealing with cold butter, no need to fuss with it — with the options of a fork, grater, and vegetable peeler, you can easily transfer butter onto your piece of bread.

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