I soften butter in the microwave a lot. BUT -- I cut the cold butter into small chunks, and only do about 2-3 second bursts with a minute or two in between each burst. I do this while assembling the other ingredients. My understanding of microwaves is they cook from the edges in, and I've also found when I microwave veggies they come out piping hot, but in a minute they are cold again. SO -- the wait means the temp normals out, and the cold that's left in the butter chunk, cools the chunk down. In all, it takes me about 10 minutes to soften the butter, but I don't microwave it for more than a total of 10 seconds. And no melting at all. I have an older over-the-range hood/fan/microwave combo.... my appliance repairman was surprised it's lasted so long. I think it's because the microwave part hardly gets used. And who knows? Since pretty much I use the microwave as a keep this away from the kitties device, I could be totally wrong, and just the mere act of cutting up the big cube into little cubes to give the air more surface to work with to soften the butter quicker...

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