The question occurs in regard to several recipes and boils down to should I
or should I not be concerned with the slump and add more flour. Sounds like
you're saying I should add flour 'till the ball holds up for a couple of
minutes of kneading. By percentages do you mean 60% water by weight? I'm not
familiar with the term "baker's percentages".

--


Ken

Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
"barry" > wrote in message
t...
>
> "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.
> >
> > --
> >
> >
> > Ken
> >
> > Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
> >
>
> Couple of observations.
>
> 1. What you're seeing is a normal process. The dough picks up the water,
> sort of on the surface, and looks like it's finished -- the dough clears
the
> side of the bowl and forms a nice dough. Then the flour gets wetted
through
> and the thing slumps a bit. Normal.
>
> 2. Be careful of what you or the recipe author use as equivalents. One
of
> the nasty little secrets of bread, and most other, cookbooks is that a lot
> of the recipes aren't tested to perform as written. The other little
secret
> is that a cup ain't a cup. If you measure the flour, you should also
> measure the water and do some calculation of baker's percentages.
>
> If you are checking baker's percentages, use these as guidelines. 60% is
> classic French bread. 65% is a tacky bread. 70% is pretty wet. 75% will
> flow. 80% is a bear to work, and will require special handling.
Obviously,
> others have different guidelines and different doughs and local conditions
> will lead to different conclusions, but if you start here, you at least
have
> an idea of what's going on.
>
> So, how much flour and water does the recipe call for?
>
> Barry
>
>