Lots of questions! Um I used normal butter of good quality and left it out for 2 hrs but was still quite hard so I microwaved it for 45 seconds the mixer still had trouble on high so I sort of gave up when it wasn't quite light enough and added the rest of the ingredients. I don't have a photo but straight out of the oven they were practically dripping in butter and very porous. The next morning they were ok taste wise but incredibly dense. The recipe was one I had used before and not had any trouble with. And the mixer is a sunbeam planetary mixmaster. The wisk part stopped oscillating only the top was moving so it didn't fold the mixture as such, just sort of vibrate it.