A few tips for effective kneading at home
When you have to knead dough for bread or some other recipe, you may well use a food processor or the type of machine known as a stand mixer. The best-known brands are Kenwood and KitchenAid. They are useful tools, but here are a few tips to help you get the best out of them.
Last modified on: June 23th 2021
A few tips for effective kneading at home
Let's start with an observation: these mini-kneaders can handle all sorts of baking and preparation, and are no less effective, when it comes to making bread or viennoiseries, for working a dough using the dough hook.
In practice, if we simply tip all the ingredients into the bowl and start the machine going, of course it will knead, but not very efficiently: the dough will tend to wrap around the hook, risks overheating, etc., and the kneading time shown in the recipe may not be long enough as a result.
In short, it's much better to avoid these issues, so here are 4 basic tips.
It is important to stop the mixer after the first 3 or 4 minutes of kneading and go round the sides with a flexible dough scraper to get any remaining flour into the dough, then carry on kneading.
If you don't scrape the bowl, these bits will end up hardening. They may fall into the dough later, will not mix in properly and will leave unpleasant, hard lumps in the bread. Bonus: your bowl will be easier to wash up afterwards.
Unfortunately, there is no easy solution to this problem: we need to stop the mixer frequently and unwrap the dough from around the hook, then start kneading again.
In practice, if we simply tip all the ingredients into the bowl and start the machine going, of course it will knead, but not very efficiently: the dough will tend to wrap around the hook, risks overheating, etc., and the kneading time shown in the recipe may not be long enough as a result.
In short, it's much better to avoid these issues, so here are 4 basic tips.
1. Ingredients in the right order
In all bread and pâtisserie recipes, we add all the ingredients to the bowl before starting to knead. Does the order in which they are added make any difference? Yes – we need to add the liquid first (water, milk, eggs, wine, etc.) and only then the flour and other dry ingredients. This helps the ingredients to start mixing straight away and makes the subsequent kneading more efficient.
2. Slow speed
Whatever brand of mixer you have, it is worth knowing that they always run too fast for effective bakery-style kneading. So we need to start on the slowest speed every time. It might not be perfect, but this comes fairly close to classic bakery kneading speed.
3. Scrape the bowl
After kneading for a few minutes, the mixture will begin to build the dough structure and form into a ball, which the hook will then turn and knead. But there will inevitably be some flour stuck around the sides of the bowl above the level of the mixed dough.It is important to stop the mixer after the first 3 or 4 minutes of kneading and go round the sides with a flexible dough scraper to get any remaining flour into the dough, then carry on kneading.
If you don't scrape the bowl, these bits will end up hardening. They may fall into the dough later, will not mix in properly and will leave unpleasant, hard lumps in the bread. Bonus: your bowl will be easier to wash up afterwards.
4. Stop the dough wrapping around the hook
After a few minutes of kneading, and especially if the dough is on the firm side, you will see it wrap itself around the hook. Once it is stuck like this, it can no longer be kneaded properly. This is the main disadvantage of kitchen mixers compared with proper bakery kneading machines. The movement of the dough hook is fairly minimal, so it ends up gathering the dough around itself.Unfortunately, there is no easy solution to this problem: we need to stop the mixer frequently and unwrap the dough from around the hook, then start kneading again.
To sum up
It is possible to get good results using a mixer to knead bread dough, but there are 4 key points to watch: the order of the ingredients (liquid in the bowl first), the kneading speed (the slower the better), keeping the bowl clean (scrape the sides after a few minutes) and, lastly, the tendency of the dough to wrap itself around the hook (free up the hook at regular intervals).
Lasts posts
Cake moulds
When we make a cake, or a cake of the same rectangular shape, we usually take out our usual mould and tell ourselves that the recipe is anyway "for a cake", but is it really that simple?August 25th 20255915
Thinning out herbs
If you need to add a long-stemmed herb (tarragon, mint, verbena, thyme, etc.) to a recipe, you'll probably only need the leaves and not the stem, so you'll need to remove the leaves. Leaf removal means keeping only the beautiful leaves, and eliminating the ugly stems and leaves, but how do you do...August 8th 20251,1725
Add a bay leaf
Bay leaf: small in size, but big in flavor. You'll find it in hundreds of recipes, and it's often added to cooking meat, in a sauce or broth, usually accompanied by other herbs or products. It's a staple of Provençal, Mediterranean and Oriental cuisine, but not the only one. Usually, in a...July 31th 20251,2565
Parsley stems
Parsley, whether curly or flat, is a delicious ingredient in many recipes, where it is used both raw and cooked. When used raw, in a salad for example, where it always provides, alone or with other herbs, a remarkable freshness, only the leaves are kept. And when used cooked?July 28th 20251,345 13
A drizzle of olive oil
Often in a recipe, you have to "baste" vegetables, for example, before sending them to the oven. What the author means by this is that you need to put oil on top of the vegetables to cook them in the oven. Typically, we just quickly drizzle oil over the vegetables, hoping not to miss any, but...July 13th 20251,5385
Other pages you may also like
Thinning out herbs
If you need to add a long-stemmed herb (tarragon, mint, verbena, thyme, etc.) to a recipe, you'll probably only need the leaves and not the stem, so you'll need to remove the leaves. Leaf removal means keeping only the beautiful leaves, and eliminating the ugly stems and leaves, but how do you do...August 8th 20251,1725
Steam for baking bread
What does steam have to do with bread-making? This is not only a bakers' secret, it is something you might not think of at all: if you make bread and bake it like a cake, you will end up with bread, but pale and with a thick, hard crust – a long way from the golden-brown crusty loaf you had in...June 16th 2021141 K4.5
85 grams of eggs?
Some time ago, I already spoke to you about the difference between baking and pastry-making, I emphasized, among other things, the precision of pastry-making which requires grams, cm, degrees and minutes. That's why, on the one hand, you have baking and cooking, where a certain tolerance is...November 26th 201852 K4.6
Cake moulds
When we make a cake, or a cake of the same rectangular shape, we usually take out our usual mould and tell ourselves that the recipe is anyway "for a cake", but is it really that simple?August 25th 20255915
A drizzle of olive oil
Often in a recipe, you have to "baste" vegetables, for example, before sending them to the oven. What the author means by this is that you need to put oil on top of the vegetables to cook them in the oven. Typically, we just quickly drizzle oil over the vegetables, hoping not to miss any, but...July 13th 20251,5385
Follow this page (as 13 people already do)
If you are interested in this page, you can "follow" it, by entering your email address here. You will then receive a notification immediately each time the page is modified or a new comment is added. Please note that you will need to confirm this following.
Note: We'll never share your e-mail address with anyone else.
Alternatively: you can subscribe to the mailing list of cooling-ez.com , you will receive a e-mail for each new recipe published on the site.
The 2 comments already posted on this page
I've never seen a recipe with such detail and hints on every aspect of baking, ( the steaming of the oven was extremely helpful)
My loafs of bread were always flavorful, but the crust was like a rock : ).
I can't wait to bake a loaf of bread again and have a normal this crust.
May you be safe,