Knead Challah Bread Dough By Hand

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Karen for Expert Village we have mixed our dough until it is to thick to mix by hand now we are going to turn it up to a clean work surface and knead our dough. I like to use this big cutting board that I use only for making dough. We are going to put a good amount of flour on the board and we are going to dump our dough right out into that flour. Scrap out much of the dough as you can from the bowl. You can flour your hands so the dough doesn't stick to it. Okay and then we just gather up that dough keep flour in your hands so the dough doesn't stick. At this point the dough is pretty sticky and you are going to fold it and squash it, fold it and squash it. Just pick up any dough that sticks to the board you just scrap that up and rub some more flour on the board and we are going to slowly work in more flour into the dough a little bit at a time. You see how it just picks it up as you squish it and fold it. Right now the dough looks pretty lumpy, floury and dry but after we finish kneading this after 10 minutes it is going to look as smooth and satiny as that other loaf that mixed in the mixer. Now I'm just adding flour, I'm not even paying attention to how many cups I'm ending up with. What I'm more concern with is the texture of the dough and how it feels and how firm it is. Lets keep kneading that dough any time it gets sticky you add a little bit more flour, you push with the heal of your hands and you fold it and push. When your are folding like this it is actually stretching the dough out and your stretching continuously stretching over and over again and that develops the glutenous in the bread. That is what gives you a nice fold, fluffy bread, with that nice stretchy texture that you get and good homemade bread. You may find after kneading for a while your surface builds up a little bit of like a build up of dough, after a while just scrap that off and then finish your kneading on a clean surface. You see how our dough is getting nice and smooth and satiny. It gots a good shape to it, it is not to loose, it is not to firm, not sticking so much, not sticking to our hands at all now. "