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Tips for Making Bread

No Mess Kneading

I found the coolest tip in the world at the Hillbilly Housewife web site! Instead of kneading your dough on a counter or cutting board, use a large bowl. Mix all the ingredients in the bowl and knead right in the bowl. Talk about easy clean-up!

My biggest tip, though, is to use lots of flour. Plenty of flour on your hands and your work surface, and keep adding flour as you knead whenever the dough starts to get the least bit sticky. This keeps the dough easy to handle. If you knead on your counter, I found that a flat square of plastic, similar to a credit card, is perfect for scraping the dough off the counter quickly and easily, and makes clean-up a snap.

Rose Beranbaum's Bread Bible cookbook has good, detailed instructions for using a mixer to knead, but once you get the hang of it, you can use any recipe.

I did some research into which stand mixers would be best for kneading bread. You have to be careful--if the mixer is not made for kneading you will break it trying to knead. The newer Kitchen Aid mixers are reported to have problems when kneading due to a bad design of the gearbox cover, however Kitchen Aid says they have fixed this in the newest models. I have seen lots of recommendations for Electrolux Assistent, Bosch, and even Viking stand mixers instead of the Kitchen Aids for those wanting to use them to knead bread dough. (Read these customer reviews at Amazon.com for details on the Kitchen Aid gearbox issue.)

It isn't necessary to purchase an expensive stand mixer to knead bread, however. An ordinary bread machine will do it for you, though only one loaf at a time. (It is excellent for making pizza crust dough!) Use the dough setting and use a recipe that only includes enough flour to fit your bread machine. (Check your manual for the cup capacity of your machine.)

To Reduce Rising Times of Dough:

Preheat a conventional oven to 200 degrees for 5 minutes, then turn off the oven. Shape the dough as desired, place in a baking pan as directed, and cover with a clean kitchen towel. Place the dough in the oven until doubled in size. This will reduce rising time by about one-half.

Using a Bread-Machine

Do you have trouble getting loaves from your bread machine that aren’t “gummy” inside? Bread that is undercooked and gummy inside is bread that didn’t rise sufficiently. Here are some things to check:

  • Are you using all-purpose flour instead of bread flour? All-purpose flour doesn’t rise as well as bread flour because it has less gluten and because of some chemicals they add to the bread flour to help it rise more. All-purpose flour is perfectly fine to use for all your recipes, just be certain to always add 1 tablespoon of vital gluten for each cup of all-purpose or whole wheat flour in the recipe. (Vital gluten is available in the baking aisle of your supermarket.)
  • Are your ingredients, except eggs and butter, at room temperature? I keep my whole wheat flour in the freezer so it is very cold when I add it to the ingredients, which I’ve realized hinders the action of the yeast. If your flour is cold either let it sit out for a while to drop to room temperature, or set the timer on the bread machine to begin the bread in 1 hour. This gives the flour time to drop to room temperature before it get mixed with the yeast.
  • Does your bread machine have a "whole wheat" setting? Be sure to use that setting when your recipe includes any whole wheat flour. The "whole wheat" setting, allows extra rising time.
  • Does your bread machine have a "super rapid" setting? Be careful to always use the special "super rapid" recipes when you use the super rapid setting.


Take a look at some great books about baking and cooking at the Chickensense Bookstore.


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