"Stick"-ing it to the man

Butter.

Who knew BUTTER would be my downfall?

For the second time in as many baked items, I've managed to screw up the recipe by adding twice as much butter as necessary. Why? Because what constitutes a "stick" of butter today is not what I recall a stick of butter being was when I was growing up, and my brain apparently get past that change. To clarify, I don't recall seeing this new, shorter-but-broader stick of butter until after I moved out to California in 2006, but I suppose it could have been around longer than that.

A stick of butter, in case you are curious, is equivalent to 8 tablespoons, or half-a-cup.

The first time this happened was with the Pig Cake where I simply checked with my roommate, who agreed that this puny bit of butter was clearly only half a stick. A foolish mistake in retrospect, as the man barely ever cooks, but even though the cake collapsed after baking, it was still edible. THIS time around I was making brioche dough for savory breakfast rolls and double-checked online to avoid repeating my earlier mistake. But even having done this, my brain ignored my just-confirmed data and said, "One-and-a-half sticks? No prob, bro, lemme toss in three of these for you." *sigh*

The good news is I still have time to make a fresh batch before tomorrow morning, and I'll go ahead and see if the current over-buttered batch can be made into normal bread. My guess is probably not, but it seems a waste just to toss it all out.

So remember kids:

A "stick" of butter = 8tbls / 0.5 cups / 4oz.

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