Thermomix Soft Butter

I love butter - especially gorgeous organic, grass fed butter. It tastes wonderful and is really good for you! Contrary to marketing hype, it is not bad for your heart. It is calorie dense though, so don't go too crazy if watching your weight.

I have two types of butter in my fridge, soft and hard. The hard butter is what I source organically and use for cooking. The soft stuff I use for spreading but you can't get soft, spreadable organic butter that you keep in the fridge. So... here is my recipe to do it yourself :)

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250g organic butter
1/4 cup filtered water
1/4 cup oil that doesn't go hard in the fridge (see comments below re oils)

Place ingredients in thermomix bowl and blend on speed 5 for 30-40 secs till whipped and well combined, stop and scrape down sides every 10 secs. Store in a container in the fridge.

This can also be done in any blender - just avoid super high speeds to avoid it splattering all over the bowl/jug.

You can vary the oil, but be mindful of using oils that are high in omega 6 (e.g. canola, sunflower, grapeseed). Rather go for oils with higher omega 3 ratios such as walnut, hemp or flax - only issue is these oils usually aren't mild and may overpower the butter. Some walnut oils are mild. Flax oil goes rancid quickly, so if making a flax oil based soft butter, be sure to use within 2 weeks. Golden flax oil is much nicer than regular flax oil from brown flax-seeds (linseed). Whatever oil you use, please get the best quality possible, preferably organic to avoid pesticide residues and GMOs. Despite the omega 6 factor, sunflower is a good source of choline and a good quality organic sunflower oil makes a nice addition to this butter recipe.

Ideally only saturated fats should be used for cooking i.e. butter, lard, ghee, coconut or palm (sustainable and orangutan friendly palm only!!) as they don't denature and form trans fats when heated. Other oils should be consumed raw but only go for the high omega oils as listed above. Olive oil is ok to heat provided it is good quality - highly processed, non virgin olive oils have lower smoke points. When cooking in the thermomix, remember temps are limited to 100 degrees, making olive oil a safe choice as its way off the smoke point of around 200 degrees C of high quality extra virgin olive oils. Careful using olive oil on the stove top as temps can get over 200 quite easily.

Butter contains many nutrients including vitamins A, D, K2, and E, lecithin, iodine and selenium.These nutrients aid heart and thyroid health, as well as being beneficial against osteoporosis and arthritis. Fat soluble vitamins (A, E, D, K2) need to be consumed with fat to be utilised by the body. Butter added to veggies and especially greens, also aids the absorption of fat soluble minerals such as iron, magnesium and calcium

For more info about butter:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/12/07/why-is-butter-better.aspx