"Ken Ortmann" > wrote in message
...
> I'm hoping someone can answer a question making bread dough (and pizza
> dough and such). I'm using a Kitchen Aid stand mixer as I am disabled and
> cannot mix and knead by hand. The instructions generally say to start with
> 3/4 of the flour and all of the liquid and mix for a minute or so. Then
add
> flour "until the dough forms a ball and cleans the sides of the bowl. Then
> knead for two minutes more". I can get it to the stage that the dough
forms
> a ball on the dough hook and cleans the sides of the bowl all right
> but,oftentimes, before two minutes are up, the ball of dough will slump
and
> stick at the bottom center of the mixer bowl. Adding more flour will cause
> the ball to re-form on the hook but I may have to do this several times
> going well over the amount of flour called for in the recipe. I understand
> that the amount of flour will vary somewhat due to weather and the whims
of
> the kitchen gods but surely should not exceed upper limits of the recipe.
> Whadda ya think I'm doin' wrong? By the way, I measure the flour by weight
> in grams.
>
You are bound to get contradictory advice but when making bread dough, it is
always better to have a more moist rather than too stodgy a dough. If you
are weighing your ingredients by the gram, a standard bread dough should
have about 60g water for every 100g of flour. If you are baking the loaves
in tins, you could increase that to 65g of water. Ciabbata doughs are
really sloppy at over 70g of water to 100g flour. Yes, I know the weather
etc. will sometimes make a difference but I don't think that should bother
you too much.
Another trick is to just combine the flour and water and then let it stand
for about 20 minutes so that the flour can absorb the water. Then proceed
with the kneading, adding a bit of extra flour if you think it necessary.

HTH
Graham