Cutting cold butter into flour - which mixer attachment should I use?
I have a kitchenaid 6 quart stand mixer and a large family of nine. At the moment we're using coupons to buy biscuit dough, but I wanted to look at the time and effort to make our own. Not just for cost savings (though that would be nice) but more to control what we're actually eating.
Many of the better recipes call for the butter to be cut into the flour. I have a hand tool for this, but am unsure whether the paddle or whisk is best, or if there's another tool I should consider purchasing.
What tool should I use, and at what speed will best duplicate the process of cutting cold butter into flour without warming up the butter too much?
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I'm going by what kitchenaid says and yes you can. Use the paddle and the lowest speed.
I use the paddle at the lowest speed.
The Kitchenaid K5A (the model I have) is nearly identical to a Hobart made before Kitchenaid bought out that product line from Hobart. I bought mine in '75.
Instead of a mixer, I use a food processor (Magimix) with a steel knife.
It's the fastest way to blend cold butter with flower without heating and melting the butter.
Note that a mixer will probably heat the butter because more energy must be applied to squash the butter than to cut it.
Well, I have to go against what sourd'oh said, I like the whisk attachment for cutting in butter. I have owned two kitchen aid's in the past and they both had nice solid whisks with thick wires that worked great for cutting in the butter.
And to go with the heat theory that uval mentioned, a whisk has much smaller surface area hitting the butter and so is not smashing the butter as much as a paddle would.
As a side note, I now own a Delonghi stand mixer, and I do NOT use that whisk attachment for cutting in butter because it is much too thin. The wires would easily bend.
Dice the butter and use the paddle attachment, as sourd'oh recommended. The paddle will break up the butter some, but more importantly will 'squish' the pieces, making them thinner and flatter. That will layer the butter through your pastry, making it flaky. This is similar to the effect of coarsely grating the butter, but will create a good shape and mix the pastry at the same time. You won't mix as fast this way as with the whisk or a food processor, but it's still hands-off and you'll get flakier results.
For cutting cold butter into flour one can take a piece of cold butter and grate it using the cheese grater box with small holes in it (but it requires little more effort). Another way is to use the food processor, pastry blender or dough blender. I have used the pastry blender which works great for me.
Since you ask about other tools, I recommend avoiding the mixer altogether and instead grate frozen butter into the flour. If you have a food processor you can use the coarsest grating blade--chilling the bowl and grater first will help keep the butter cold will help--but it goes quickly by hand with a coarse grater.
The key is to get the butter distributed quickly and keep the butter and dough cool while working the dough as little as possible. If you do use the mixer, chilling the bowl and paddle helps.
And, regardless of method using ice water and very cold liquids helps.
I've used an electric hand whisk with the whisk attachments. That works. The strips of metal making up the whisks were flat, cutting through the butter as they went round. It might not work as well if the whisk attachments were rounded.
The paddle should be used for this. You'll want to do it on a lower speed, probably no higher than 2 or 3. You'll have problems with the flour flying up before you have trouble with the butter melting. It will also help to chop the butter up some before putting it in.
Back in 1976, when I was in culinary school, we had a tabletop Hobart and two Hobart floor mixers. They each had a pastry blade attachment. Depending on the mixer, we could make pie crust and biscuits to feed 4 or 604. I'm not sure Hobart even makes them anymore. I suffer deeply from the same dilemma as you. I keep looking for a KitchenAid with a pastry blade. Maybe if we home pastry chefs whined and cried to the KitchenAid designers, they will design one for us, putting an end to our culinary woes.
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