How to Knead Bread Dough in your Stand Mixer

You are ready to make fresh homemade bread, but don't have time--or willingness to clean up the mess--that goes with hand kneading. Then you remember, Aha! I have a Kitchen-Aid (or other kind of stand mixer) and a dough hook! You have heard about kneading bread in there, but never done it. So you get everything together, and are about half-way through when you realize that your recipe has LOTS of instructions for hand-kneading when you add the flour. You have no idea how to translate this to your machine. A futile search of the manual and online yield nothing terribly helpful. Before you wing it and create less than stellar bread, here's how.

Things You'll Need

• A stand mixer
• dough hook
• A recipe for homeade bread with all the ingredients it calls for.
• Usual kitchen utensils and dishes.

Instructions

1. Outfit your mixer with a dough hook and follow your recipe to proof the yeast. It should involve warm water, a package of yeast, and sitting for 5-10 minutes. Go ahead and use your mixer bowl to do this. If your recipe wants you to add other ingredients after proofing, add them. If your recipe needs them well-mixed, use a spoon or whisk. (or outfit your mixer with the appropriate attatchment and then switch back.)

2. Most recipes call for a range of flour measurements. Normally the minimum is around 6 cups. To take the guesswork out of it, you may want to carefully measure 6 cups in a bowl (or whatever the minimum is)to prevent yourself from losing track later. Then get out your 1/2 cup measuring cup and pour the first batch in.

3. Turn on your stand mixer to the lowest speed. The action of the dough hook doesn't mix wet ingredients very efficiently so it may take a minute or two to mix in. Once everything is mixed (it may look pretty lumpy, don't worry.) dump in the next 1/2 cup.

4. Keep pouring in 1/2 cups of flour and wait until it is mixed in before adding the next 1/2 cup. Repeat until your 6 cups are gone.

5. Turn up the speed on the mixer, the second to lowest speed. Set the timer for 5 minutes but don't walk away because here is where it gets fun. Hand-kneaded recipes are designed to have some of the flour kneaded in during the kneading process. It is harder to know when to do this with a mixer. Here's how you tell:

6. After a minute or so, Check the bottom of the bowl through the action of the mixer. If there is a little pool of unincorporated dough, you need to add more flour. You may not need to add a full 1/2 cup, just shake some in. Check back in another minute. Is it still there? Add more flour. Repeat as needed.

7. Your five minute timer went off. Finally your pool of dough at the bottom of your bowl seems to be gone; is your dough ready? Stop and feel the dough. Well-kneaded dough is smooth and elastic. There should also be nothing loose on the sides of the bowl (a scrape of wet clinging to the side is okay) and the bottom of your bowl should be clean. If the bowl looks good, but the dough on the hook feels sticky to the touch, add a little bit more flour and turn it back on for 3-5 minutes.

8. After you have kneaded it, your dough should come off the dough hook easily. I put mine on a clean plate and grease the inside of the mixing bowl with shortening, then return the dough to the bowl. (You can also use a different bowl, but plates take up less room in the dishwasher.) A little Saran wrap over the top, and the dough is ready to rise.

Tips & Warnings

• If you add too much flour during the kneading process for the liquid in the recipe, you'll also be able to see it in the bottom of your bowl. There will be a bunch of loose flour down there that won't incorporate, and the dough on your hook may look crumbly and/or powdery. You need to add more water to compensate. Just add a little at a time until the bottom is clean and the dough is smooth.

• During the kneading process, use your mixer's clamping feature to keep the hook in the dough. It probably will thump against the counter during kneading. That's normal but keep an eye on it. If the machine is laboring too much, adjust the speed. If that doesn't work, you may have too much dough(see warning).

• Most home mixers can only handle about 6-6 1/2 cups of flour to knead. To avoid burning out the motor or poorly mixed dough everywhere, (including in the mechinism of the mixer), refer to the manual before using a recipe that calls for, say, eight cups of flour. And yes, there's a reason I'm sharing this.