The Bread Topic (2016–)

[JoNorvelleWalker]

16 minutes ago, Franci said:

@JoNorvelleWalker I have this one , it’s not expensive at all. I will not deny that it moves around, looks like a toy, and it’s for small quantities, better for  400-500g flour max but I rarely do more than that anyway. I only reach for the Ka for cakes. 

 

Edit to add: in the past I owned also a different model with a central axel, that is much better for bigger quantities, one of the reason I disliked it compare to the model I linked-which has a tilted head-was exactly I never kneaded big quantities. 

 

 

I was looking at the Bosch Universal Plus.  It is said to work well for small quantities of flour.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

2 minutes ago, lindag said:

@JoNorvelleWalker Several years ago I bought a big Bosch for bread-baking but returned it because it was too wimpy.

Then I bought a big Electrolux that was great for big quantities.  It is now in storage.

For bread now I use either my 5-qt. KA or my Zojurishi Bread Machine.  Both work great.

 

I have a Zojirushi bread maker that long served admirably for mixing bread dough.  But when I got my chamber vacuum sealer I had to relegate the Zojirushi to the bedroom.

 

Do you recall which model Bosch you had?

 

 

[lindag]

This was some time ago.  That model is no longer made.

[Anna N]

1 hour ago, Franci said:

@JoNorvelleWalker I have this one , it’s not expensive at all. I will not deny that it moves around, looks like a toy, and it’s for small quantities, better for  400-500g flour max but I rarely do more than that anyway. I only reach for the Ka for cakes. 

 

Edit to add: in the past I owned also a different model with a central axel, that is much better for bigger quantities, one of the reason I disliked it compare to the model I linked-which has a tilted head-was exactly I never kneaded big quantities. 

 

That is the model I have and I adore it!

[dtremit]

53 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

I was looking at the Bosch Universal Plus.  It is said to work well for small quantities of flour.

 

 

I have the older Universal (procured from eBay; there's a lot of good ones out there) -- but the two are very similar in terms of design and function. 

People sometimes complain about small batches climbing the center column in the plastic bowl on the Universal. That is counteracted somewhat by the scraper on the newer dough hook design, though.

 

Ironically, the Universal that does best with small quantities is the model with the larger, stainless steel bowl. That has a completely different bowl-and-hook arrangement -- there is no center column, and the three-pronged hook faces upward.

 

The smaller, tilt-head Bosch actually gets a lot of good press for small batches. I was specifically looking for large-batch capability so it wasn't on my list.

[lindag]

49 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

I have a Zojirushi bread maker that long served admirably for mixing bread dough.  But when I got my chamber vacuum sealer I had to relegate the Zojirushi to the bedroom.

 

 

My Zo (two paddle model) is wonderful for mixing and kneading.  I just don’t bake in it.

[ElsieD]

17 minutes ago, lindag said:

My Zo (two paddle model) is wonderful for mixing and kneading.  I just don’t bake in it.

 

I have the twin paddle Zo also and love it.  I made a pain de mie and challah this week but used the Zo for dough only.

[lindag]

18 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

 

I have the twin paddle Zo also and love it.  I made a pain de mie and challah this week but used the Zo for dough only.

Best part is clean-up is a breeze...so much easier than a mixer.

[Ann_T]

1 hour ago, lindag said:

@JoNorvelleWalker Several years ago I bought a big Bosch for bread-baking but returned it because it was too wimpy.

Then I bought a big Electrolux that was great for big quantities.  It is now in storage.

For bread now I use either my 5-qt. KA or my Zojurishi Bread Machine.  Both work great.

@lindag, I have the  Electrolux, Magic Mill.  Bought it when we lived in Sault Ste Marie back in the early 90's.   I used it for years, until 2014 when I started using the

Forkish method.   Haven't used it since.   I started taking food photos and hosting them on Smugmug in 2004 and have a number of bread albums  .  Went back recently and looked

at breads i made back then and the machine mixed breads look pretty much the same as the breads I now make by hand.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

@teonzo, just now I was reading Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Bread Bible and I noticed she calls for mixing bread dough on speed #4 with a KitchenAid.  For whatever reason speed #2 does not do much of anything at all.  At least for me.

 

I was hoping that the problem was simply that my batch size was too small; but as I found, doubling the quantity did not help.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

@lindag and @ElsieD, what amount of dough do you mix at one time in the Zojirushi?

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

1 hour ago, Ann_T said:

@lindag, I have the  Electrolux, Magic Mill.  Bought it when we lived in Sault Ste Marie back in the early 90's.   I used it for years, until 2014 when I started using the

Forkish method.   Haven't used it since.   I started taking food photos and hosting them on Smugmug in 2004 and have a number of bread albums  .  Went back recently and looked

at breads i made back then and the machine mixed breads look pretty much the same as the breads I now make by hand.

 

@Ann_T I'm sure you could make gorgeous bread with an Electrolux vacuum cleaner.

 

[Margaret Pilgrim]

My mother made bread at least once a week all of her life.   By hand.   Using whatever AP flour was on sale.   Every kind from good old American white bread to French baguette and batard, her specialty.   Occasionally branching off to the unappetizing such as salt rising...oh god, that smell.    Multi grain and single grain, amazing aromas.

 

By hand.   No machines.    Wonky oven.  

 

Fabulous crust and crumb.    I can only walk in her shadow.   

[teonzo]

On 11/7/2019 at 5:43 AM, JoNorvelleWalker said:

I must disagree however with your criticism of Modernist Bread.  For panettone Modernist bread recommends (4-21) "...Giusto's High Performance High-Protein Unbleached Flour or King Arthur Sir Lancelot Flour or High-Gluten Flour for the high-gluten flour in this recipe."  You may disagree with their choice of flour, but it is wrong of you to say they do not specify.

 

Problem is that MB is sold all over the world, not only in the USA. Specifying those brands is totally useless for people outside the USA. Giving the required values for the flour (W and P/L mainly) would be much much better. That's what happens in all technical books, that's what a self claimed scientific book should do. That set was made with a Discovery Channel approach, not with a Scientific American approach.

 

 

 

 

On 11/7/2019 at 5:43 AM, JoNorvelleWalker said:

I sometimes take risks and don't always believe instruction manuals.  I've kneaded bread dough as high as speed 8.  I have two KitchenAid mixers and I haven't destroyed one yet.

 

Those kind of mechanical wears happen in the long term, not in the short term. You are not noticing it now, but you are shortening the working life of your machine of some years.

 

 

 

Teo

 

 

 

[teonzo]

11 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

@teonzo, just now I was reading Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Bread Bible and I noticed she calls for mixing bread dough on speed #4 with a KitchenAid.

 

I suppose she is good at baking, not at mechanical engineering. I've seen many top chefs making this mistake, doesn't mean it's not a mistake because they are top chefs. A michelin starred chef I worked with was adamant in mixing his bread at speed 5 on his KA. He kept wondering why he had to buy a new one every year though.

 

 

 

Teo

 

[ElsieD]

11 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

@lindag and @ElsieD, what amount of dough do you mix at one time in the Zojirushi?

 

 

I use 585 grams (4 cups) of flour for the pain de mie.  The recipe I use also calls for 1 1/2 cups of water, 6 T of butter and a couple of T of honey along with the salt and yeast.

[Ann_T]

@JoNorvelleWalker, thanks.😊

 

My Kitchenaid is old.  Bought back in 1979, the year we moved in Grand Rapids Michigan. It is one of the Hobart machines.  I used it for years to knead dough, prior to getting the Magic Mill.

It is still going strong and, I'm touching wood as I say, it has never been serviced.  I can't even tell you what  speed I use to knead on it.   It just depended on the amount of dough in the machine. I used the

speed necessary to do its job.  

 

Baked a focaccia last night using the same dough as the pizza (Posted in Dinner thread).   Dough was in the fridge since Monday. 750g flour, 600g water ( 80% hydration ), 6g of yeast and 22g salt and a

glug of olive oil. 

 

 

 

Edited November 8, 2019 by Ann_T (log)

[dtremit]

3 hours ago, teonzo said:

 

Problem is that MB is sold all over the world, not only in the USA. Specifying those brands is totally useless for people outside the USA. Giving the required values for the flour (W and P/L mainly) would be much much better. That's what happens in all technical books, that's what a self claimed scientific book should do. That set was made with a Discovery Channel approach, not with a Scientific American approach.

 

Sadly W and P/L values are just not readily available for flours sold to consumers in the US. We are lucky if they even list the protein percentage clearly. So specifying only that would make the book useless here. 

 

I'm not a huge fan of MB but I understand why they made that decision.

 

1 hour ago, Ann_T said:

@JoNorvelleWalker, thanks.😊

 

My Kitchenaid is old.  Bought back in 1979, the year we moved in Grand Rapids Michigan. It is one of the Hobart machines.  I used it for years to knead dough, prior to getting the Magic Mill.

It is still going strong and, I'm touching wood as I say, it has never been serviced.  I can't even tell you what  speed I use to knead on it.   It just depended on the amount of dough in the machine. I used the speed necessary to do its job.  

 

 

I think part of the issue is that there's so much variation between KAs. You probably would have to make dough out of lead shot to destroy one of the old Hobarts. The newer ones are not built to that standard -- nor are all the modern models built to the same standard. The "pro" models from 15-20 years ago were made with metal gears, but a plastic gear housing; unfortunately in a KA the gear housing is placed under a lot of stress, so most of the plastic models will crack under load. When the housing cracks, the gears start slipping, and chew each other up. They moved back to a metal gear housing for *some* machines around 2010, I think -- so two people with what looks like the same model ("Pro 600") may have vastly different experiences.

[lindag]

2 hours ago, Ann_T said:

@JoNorvelleWalker, thanks.😊

 

My Kitchenaid is old.  Bought back in 1979, the year we moved in Grand Rapids Michigan. It is one of the Hobart machines.  I used it for years to knead dough, prior to getting the Magic Mill.

It is still going strong and, I'm touching wood as I say, it has never been serviced.  I can't even tell you what  speed I use to knead on it.   It just depended on the amount of dough in the machine. I used the

speed necessary to do its job.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mine is the same; bought in the mid 70s it's a 5 qt. lift model Hobart.  Still beautiful and works great, never needed service.  Once when I bought an Electrolux Magic Mill I considered selling my KA.  I'm so glad I didn't.  My Electrolux is stored away since it's way too big for me now but that KA is still going strong all these years later.

As a young married I tried so very hard to made bread.  I was obsessed.  Couldn't make a decent loaf to save my soul and had no one to teach me.  Then I got my KA and everything changed, I was making wonderful breads.  I guess it was all in the kneading.

[Duvel]

3 hours ago, Ann_T said:

 

 

Fantastic - that’s the crumb shot 🤗

[heidih]

I ended up with white whole wheat flour instead of plain white in my grocery order yesterday. I just mixed up a batch of no-knead. It defnietly felt different. I lookd at pics online and the loaves look dense. We shall see. Never a dull moment.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

11 hours ago, teonzo said:

Those kind of mechanical wears happen in the long term, not in the short term. You are not noticing it now, but you are shortening the working life of your machine of some years.

 

 

 

Teo

 

 

My older KitchenAid is well more than thirty years.  I suspect they may out last me.  And before anyone states the obvious, my granddaughter already has a KitchenAid.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

My once frozen dough:

 

 

 

It's alive!  I thawed it overnight in the refrigerator and let it sit at room temperature for a couple hours.  Easier than I thought to get the dough out of the PolyScience bag.  But the proof remains in the pudding.

 

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

 

 

 

 

Inexplicably bread from my frozen dough was so much better than bread from the same dough batch unfrozen.  Vacuum sealing may have added strength.

 

Dough is a living thing.  By comparison I find cats much easier to understand.  But dough is less difficult to bake.

 

 

[Ann_T]

10 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

 

 

 

Inexplicably bread from my frozen dough was so much better than bread from the same dough batch unfrozen.  Vacuum sealing may have added strength.

 

Dough is a living thing.  By comparison I find cats much easier to understand.  But dough is less difficult to bake.

 

 

 

I've never frozen bread dough before.   Now that I see how great it turned out I just might have to give it a try.

 

I love the blisters on the crust and the shine on your crumb.