How to Make Butter with Your Mixer

A while back I wrote about making butter in a jar by putting cream in a jar and shaking it until your arms give out. It did make butter but it was a lot of shaking. I've since heard you can put a marble in the jar to when shaking it and that makes it quicker and easier to get butter. Whoops.

Yesterday I made the milk run for our co-op and grabbed myself a few quarts of cream so I could make butter on a larger scale. Like KitchenAid stand mixer larger size, woohoo! I started with almost a quart of cream and ended up with a little over two cups of finished butter. It looked so great that as soon as I was finished washing and draining the butter I started a couple loaves of bread right in the same bowl. No need to wash the bowl the dough just incorporated all the little bits of leftover butter right into it.

Homemade Butter
1 quart cream-as fresh as possible
pinch of salt

Let the cream warm up to about 60˚ on the counter
put the paddle attachment on your stand mixer
scrape the cream into the bowl
add a pinch of salt
start the mixer and turn it up to about 8
let it run until the cream breaks and the fat starts to clump together
once this happens butter is imminent just let it keep running
when the butter is finally separated and a big lump in the middle turn the mixer off
pour off the butter milk and add a bit of fresh water to the bowl
swish the butter around and try to get it all in a big ball
pour off the water and squeeze out the remaining water
add more salt if needed
pack into a bowl and serve as is or refrigerate to use later

Now while the mixer bowl is sitting there with fresh butter all over it why not make a batch of super easy bread? Here's my easy to make bread recipe:

Basic Bread Dough
How I make bread: makes 2 loaves
in a KitchenAid fitted with a dough hook
add 2 cups flour, 1 Tablespoon  yeast, 1 teaspoon sugar, 1 teaspoon salt
pulse to mix for a bit
add 1 1/2 cups warm water
run to incorporate water, stop and scrape down sides
add 1-2 Tablespoons of olive oil
run again until all in incorporated, you may need to scrape it down again
now start adding flour 1/2 cup at a time
let it incorporate before adding more flour
as it becomes dough you need to turn it off and check on it if it is still sticky keep adding flour
I usually end up adding between 2 to 3 more cups and sometimes as much as 4 cups, depends on the day, the humidity and if I added a little too much water
once it has taken as much as it will, you'll be able to tell this because it will incorporate less easily and the dough will not be too sticky, let the machine knead it for 5 more minutes or so
when it is done it will climb the dough hook and drop back down repeatedly, or at least that's when I call it done, it should be smooth, moderately stiff and not sticky
turn it out into a greased bowl, flip to grease, cover with a warm damp towel and let rise in a warm place
it will double in about hour or two
punch it down, grease two loaf pans, form your loaves
pop them in the pans, cover them and let them rise until they are about 1 inch above the pan
pre-heat the oven, remove the towel and bake in a 350˚ for 20-30 minutes


Peace and Love--