Stand mixer and rye bread

I got a new-to-me electric blue Kitchenaid stand mixer last week.  Michael and I worked together to buy it and in the first day we made three separate batches of deliciousness with it.

First came the blueberry muffins, ready and waiting on the table when I rolled out of my room.  Then I tried a rich, sweet bun with bacon and onions inside.  The bacon was cooked by filling the pan with water, dropping the bacon into it, and cooking until all of the water had boiled off.  I delegated that task to anybody else in the house who would take it.

The recipe called for a stick of butter and half a cup of milk.  We were out of milk so I used almost a cup of heavy whipping cream instead, which made the final bread deliciously rich.

Makin' the bacon

Tiny bacon packages

Adem with the bacon

Happy ball of dough

Bacon disappearing

The bacon rolls went in only a few minutes.  I also made some with no bacon and ate them on the plane as travel food the next day.

Next came rye bread from this Smitten Kitchen recipe.  I baked two loaves: one parbaked, so I pulled it out and stuffed it in the freezer before it was finished baking.  The second one came out of the oven and disappeared in five minutes, and was rated one of the best tasting breads I've made by Nathan.  I think this was due to the large number of caraway seeds.  I'm trying this recipe again a few times to make sure I can make it consistently, then I'll be varying the ratios of rye and white flour to get a darker loaf.

I parbaked the loaf on request from Nathan because I was heading out of town for a week; halfway through the week he pulled it out of the freezer and chucked it into the oven and got to enjoy homemade bread even without the baker.  This is also a good way for me to have fresh bread ready to eat at any time.

The strangest thing about the stand mixer is definitely how clean my hands were at the end of making the dough.  I like it for making very wet, hard-to-knead doughs; the rye dough and ciabatta doughs are a great example of these things.  I'm also planning to use it for making cookies.  Open engineering challenge: design an add-on to the Kitchenaid to extrude, cut, and place cookies on a sheet.

Mmm

More rye bread is in the oven now.  If it doesn't disappear overnight I'll be taking it to karate--and if you're from kenpo and reading this, I suggest you bring cheese.