If you're planning to try this recipe out in your own kitchen, do yourself a favor and take the butter out of your fridge an hour or so before you start.
The Barefoot Contessa starts these cookies by beating the butter until it's smooth, but I couldn't get my too-cold fat to mush around. So, I turned to my trusty microwave.
I overshot it big time and went for 30 seconds, which would have been great if I was supposed to use melted butter in this recipe. The liquid consistency would have likely changed the texture of my cookies, making them more toffee-like instead of slightly fluffy.
Alas, my grade-school learning popped up in my brain and I knew that this solid-turned-liquid could go back to being solid if I put it in the fridge. So back into the cold it went.
Checking on it a few times, the butter finally reached the perfect "softened" state I needed for this recipe. It took a while, but I finally got there. So if you make this mistake too, and over-heat your butter, fear not — cool it down again! But it's a whole lot easier to just learn from my mistake.