KitchenAid stand mixer | White Cabana

Okay, okay. Since you already know that I love my KitchenAid stand mixer, I’ll get straight to my recent bread making experience.

Although I was a bit hesitant to make bread from scratch, I was also very curious and determined. I opened up the handy KitchenAid recipe book that came with my stand mixer, and I flipped to the page that had the “basic white bread” recipe. I prepped all of my ingredients, I followed the directions exactly, and here is a photo-heavy recap of what happened…

basic white bread recipe from KitchenAid + packets of active dry yeast

butter, salt, sugar, milk melting on the stove

4.5 cups of flour to start (I probably ended up using 5.5 cups)

mixing 2 packets of active dry yeast with warm water in a warm mixing bowl

mixing all of the ingredients: yeast, water, milk, melted butter, sugar, salt, and flour

level 2 speed for a few minutes

mixing the dough with the dough hook until the sides are clean and the dough is sticky

sides of bowl are clean and dough is sticky

see – I told you – clean bowl!

dough in a oil-lined bowl

risen dough after 1 hour in the bowl

punched dough

rolling out half of the dough

rolling up the flattened dough

into the loaf pan it goes

risen dough after 1 hour in the loaf pan

after 30 minutes in the 400° oven

the recipe made 2 loaves (one is wonky because I had to DIY a loaf-type pan)

golden bread

crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside

the best way to enjoy fresh bread – with Nutella

The bread was FANTASTIC! It was perfectly golden, had a crunchy crust, was soft on the inside, and the recipe worked! It was as time consuming as bread making is (I think it took about 10 minutes to prep, 1 hour of wait time so the bread could rise the first time, 1 hour to rise the second time, and 30 minutes to bake in the oven). I did a bunch of other things around the house during the wait & rise times, so I really didn’t feel like bread making was a whole lot of work. Oh my goodness – I could probably live on fresh bread and Nutella*. It’s too darn delicious!

Oh – and I know I’m “supposed” to eat healthy, grainy, brown bread, but sometimes I just don’t care. White and simple worked perfectly for me!

* This is not a sponsored post, but if Nutella wants to offer me with a year/lifetime supply of Nutella, I’d be grateful, and I’d make fresh bread more often!

One of the first recipes I tried after my friend Johanne gave me Gwyneth Paltrow’s My Father’s Daughter a few years ago was Blythe’s blueberry muffins. I have been making them ever since because they’re so darn good and easy!

I recently gave them a try using my KitchenAid stand mixer. I didn’t really need to use the mixer, but I wanted to because I love it. Here’s how things turned out.

prepping the mini muffin tins

prepping the KA mixer

prepping the ingredients

mixing everything together

fresh blueberry mini muffins – just in time for breakfast!

Here’s the recipe taken from Gwyneth Paltrow’s My Father’s Daughter:

Ingredients

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
2 eggs (preferably organic)*
1/2 cup whole milk*
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 cup plus 1 tsp sugar, divided**
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups fresh blueberries

*I use whatever milk and eggs I have in my fridge.
**I always forget about the extra sugar, and I tend to under measure the sugar, especially in muffin recipes.

Directions

Heat oven to 375°. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners*. Whisk butter, eggs, and milk in a bowl. Combine flour, 3/4 cup sugar, baking powder, and salt in another bowl. Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients***; fold in blueberries. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups; spring with remaining 1 tsp sugar. Bake until muffins are golden brown and a knife comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Serve warm.

*I often use mini muffin tins, and I think I can usually get 24 mini muffins and 8 regular sized muffins with one batch of the recipe.
**I threw everything in the mixer at almost the same time, and the muffins still baked perfectly.

White Cabana

In the Kitchen: Making Bread with the KitchenAid Stand Mixer

In the Kitchen: Blythe’s Blueberry Muffins