Flavored Butters

For my little sister's wedding, she decided to have a bread bar for her appetizers.  If you know my sister, you know this is a perfect appetizer for her.  She is the queen of carbs!  Of course she wanted all homemade breads for this bread bar and that job fell to my mother and yours truly.  We also made several types of flavored butters to set on the tables to go with the breads.  We piped all the the butters into roses because we are silly, but they did end up looking pretty.  Flavored butters are very easy to make and make a nice addition to plain old bread.  Wrapped up, they also make nice gifts.  My grandmother liked the cinnamon butter so well, I made her some to keep in her freezer for Mother's Day.

Cinnamon Butter
1 stick butter
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tablespoon brown sugar

Vanilla Butter
1 stick butter
1 teaspoon vanilla (best to use real vanilla)
1 tablespoon powdered sugar

Italian Herb Butter
1 stick butter
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon dried basil

Raspberry Butter
1 stick butter
1 teaspoon raspberry extract
1 tablespoon powdered sugar
pink food coloring to the hue that is desired

Allow butter to come to room temperature.  Beat for a few minutes on high until fluffy.  Mix in the add-ins.  Use as desired.  The vanilla and raspberry butter were the easiest to pipe into roses.  The others had chunkier add-ins which occasionally would get caught in the tip.  Properly wrapped, butter can be refrozen for quite some time so these can easily be made ahead of time.