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I did my two little Challah using the KA stand mixer on Tuesday and Wednesday. They came out very well, soft and fine grain. I changed the recipe by leaving out all the sugar and the egg wash. The bread would have been improved by the egg wash, it came out a light brown and not especially pretty.
Why was there sugar and honey in an ordinary Challah recipe? Its not suppose to be a sweet bread or is it? I'm perfectly willing to put sugar in Moravian sugar bread, or chocolate bread, or other sweet breads but it seems odd for a Challah which should be savory.
This is my third bread with a stand mixer and I'm getting more used to its abilities. Also limitations -- this time I added flour by the spoonful, next time I might make a funnel out of a paper plate. Dumping the flour into the bowl from a quart container isn't going to ever work.
I went searching the Internet and there were people who really hated the way their Kitchen Aid mixer handled bread dough. Have you had any problems? Could I over heat the mixer if I tried to make two loaves at once?Great story;
I was reading various bread recipes for using a stand mixer. Do any of you have different standards for using a mixer as opposed to doing it by hand? For example I have different ways of dealing with whole wheat and white bread.
1). White bread. Use all the liquid ingredients, but start with 3/4 of the white flour. Knead in enough of the reserved white flour and any additional to get bread dough of proper consistency.
2). Whole wheat bread. Use all the flour and all the liquid. Let the dough rest for 10-15 minutes at least. Add more liquid to get dough of proper consistency. Use additional flour if needed but that doesn't happen very often.I have read recipes for white bread with the stand mixer which starts with using all the flour and reserving a portion of the water. The water is added until the dough is a proper consistency. If necessary additional water is added.
My plan for my next Mixer experiment is to make challah. Probably this recipe.
Any advice? I will only try a three braid bread. I might divide the dough and make two small Challah instead of one big one.
https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/mollys-challah-recipeI used my kitchenaid to make "Japanese Milk Rolls" from the KA flour recipe. I tried to follow the directions and ended up with 10 very large, very fluffy rolls. I think I would have preferred smaller rolls. This time I didn't time how long I kneaded the dough just kept the machine on till the dough start crawling up the hook. The dough was very soft even after I added additional flour. I was happier with the mixer this time since I was concentrating on its strength in mixing and kneading bread dough, and not expecting it to do other things like cream butter or beat eggs.
I went to look at the Kitchen Aid site. The spiral hook isn't made for the 5 qt mixers. They do have replacements for the paddle beater available.
Some of the KA attachments look very interesting especially the meat grinder and pasta maker. I can't see myself using these but they are interesting.I cut my 9x13 quick bread into 3 sections the long way and then slice each section. This gives me quick bread sticks or rather short slices. It freezes nicely and is still a good shape for spreading butter or cream cheese. The slices are very short, but still "slices" instead of "squares".
This was recommended on a web site and I'll try to find it.here is the web site
http://heidimix.blogspot.com/2014/05/quick-bread-for-crowd.htmlThanks for looking that up! Have you thought of just baking shallower breads? I normally make mine in a cast iron frying pan so perhaps 2 inches high. I've made double batches in a 9x13 pan so also fairly shallow. Not traditional shapes but it cooks completely in half the time or less.
Mike;
Have you ever overkneaded a dough when kneading by hand? I've kneaded some doughs for a considerable amount of time without getting close. I've always assumed that I would get bored before reaching the limit. I had one cookbook that recommended overkneading to make good English Muffins so thought it would be possible.
I am surprised that it would take 30 minutes to overknead by machine. I was afraid that kneading only a minute or two too long would have problems.
ThanksGood Morning all;
First thanks for all your good advice on machine kneading. Otherwise I would have panicced and worried about overkneading.
The start of this was much like doing it by hand. Mix the sponge ingredients and let it rise. Stir together cocoa, sugar, salt and part of flour. Reserve the rest of the flour in a convenient container.
The first change was beating the eggs and butter together. I don't think the mixer was made for such small amounts. It would have been faster by hand especially trying to cream the butter. The butter was still in chunks when I gave up.
Then I mixed in the sponge and that went better. However it is much harder to add ingredients than with a tilt head mixer. Lowering the bowl doesn't really give clearance to pour in ingredients, and taking the bowl out lets the beater drip onto the base. Also using a spatula to scrape the bowl is harder.
I then changed to the dough hook and added most of the dry ingredients. A hook is a really inefficient mixing tool. The mixer bowl is hard to scrape down even in its lower position. I found I could unfasten the hook and then the bowl so I could effectively run a scraper along the sides. Its also wierd to trying to carefully add the flour without using your hands to gauge the stickiness. This is where I was so glad for your advice. I went over the 2 minutes of kneading and then decided to continue until the sides were cleaner and the dough started climbing the hook. I think I went around 6 minutes, then added the walnuts and cherries and kneaded 2 more minutes.
I left the dough in the mixing bowl to rise, and started cleaning up. This made less of a mess than kneading by hand and took less time. Washing the mixer was a little awkward, I had to put it on its side to clean the underside of the head. The nice thing was that the mixing bowl was a good size to let the dough rise. I just put a pan lid on it and left it.
This made 24 rolls which baked up nicely and turned out light and fluffy. A little drier than last time.Chocomouse, I am glad that you are well and safe. I went through Vermont last month and Interstate was being repaired in places. I guess with all the mountains the rain will just be funnelled into the lower areas very quickly. I hope the covered bridges survive. KA was having computer troubles when I stopped by on June 29.
I think I am going to do a Chocolate yeast bread, its the last bread I made by hand and I want to see how the experience differs. I used all the tricks to make hand kneading easier starting with a sponge, then resting the dough before kneading, and kneading the butter into the dough instead of adding it earlier. Since I use the butter on my hands and the kneading board I don't need to add as much flour giving a moister dough.
Now it seems that instead of kneading for half an hour, I only have to knead for 2 minutes and don't have to worry about easiest ways to mix ingredients.I found the model number and the serial number and it looks like it was made in February 2006. It was very expensive new, no wonder it was a group gift. It is old enough that I don't feel too bad at offering less than a third of the original price.
I did baked pancakes -- my normal whole wheat pancakes but baked in the oven until done. Chocomouse is right this is easier and less likely to burn than doing them on the stove top. Ate half of them with strawberries and Greek yogurt for breakfast; and the other half for lunch.
I did another chocolate yeast bread using a different recipe. This one has walnuts but no cherries and I used more butter than the recipe called for, and added some potato flakes. I also formed it into rolls instead of a loaf. Its been about 4 days since it was baked and its still fairly soft and tasty.
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