Aha! Did you like that play on words I did there?
Yeah, pretty lame, I’ll admit.
What else is lame is my first two (yes, two) attempts to make No-Knead Bread. I faithfully waited the 18 hours suggested by Mark Bittman and when I poured the dough out on to the cutting board, what I got was … dough soup. It was a gloopy mess and did not look like anything resembling a first rise of dough. In fact, some of it wasn’t even dough, it was tan colored water.
So, naturally, I tried again and got the same results. Since the recipe is always harping about how an 8 year old can do it … well, let’s just say I might not be smarter than a 5th grader.
And that makes me sad-face. :(
I bought some new yeast and I’m hoping that fixes the issues, but I haven’t had the time to combine bread, water and yeast together and stir it all up. All five minutes of it.
I know, I’m terrible.
On the topic of bread, does anyone use their KitchenAid mixer to knead bread? And, more specifically, does anyone use an Artisan KitchenAid to knead bread? I have a 5qt Pro Series and the other day (okay, like a month ago but I just randomly thought of it again) it was making some really funky grinding noises while kneading bread. So then I started thinking about what a bummer it would be if it broke. Mystand mixer has seen two coasts and was my first serious kitchen item, gifted to me by my parents (thanks, parents!) for my birthday one year.
True story, I was so scared of messing it up that it spent a year in my closet, in all its packaging and everything. I only started using it because Amy found it when she was helping me pack up my apartment to move and threatened to take it with her as I obviously could not be trusted to use it for its actual purpose. I started using it to make cookie dough, received the ice cream mixer attachment as a Christmas gift (thanks, Mormor!) the following year and the rest, as they say, is history.
To go back to my original thought, which is kneading dough in the Artisan series: I get a little worried at the strange grinding noises that mine makes back at me and since it is a professional series, I wonder if the Artisan series could handle it. I also noticed that the Artisan series bowl is smaller, as is the paddle, which does come in handy for smaller tasks (like whisking 3 egg whites for macarons). Also! It comes in lemon yellow! And mustard yellow! And peppery yellow! And … well, I think you get the point here. It comes in fabulous colors and the professional series seem to only come in boring colors, like white and black.
I feel like there might be a lesson here on substance over style.
But ignoring that for a second, how about a lot of questions instead? If you have an Artisan series KA, do you knead bread in it? And if so, how is it? Does yours make weird grinding noises at you to the point that you worry about having to replace it? Do you dread the day you DO have to replace it because it’s going to be $$? Have you had luck with no-knead bread? Can you figure out what I’m doing wrong? Can you share what I’m doing wrong so I can fix it?
Answering the questions in the last paragraph:
1-3. I knead bread in my Artisan series. It is best for 1lb-loaf breads, the motor strains and gets really hot for more than about 1.5 lbs of dough. And now I have to stand over it and hold it down because it doesn’t really stay locked when kneading. And I also have to adjust the screw sometimes now after I knead dough in it. And mostly it sounds like it is going to die everytime I knead dough in it. But it has sounded this way for well over a year now.
4. I absolutely dread the day that I have to replace it, but am excited because I would get the bigger one. I have also considered buying a bread machine to do all of my kneading, and reducing the stress I’ve been putting on my KA.
5. I don’t have any experience with no-knead bread, but my only thought is that a lot of times (especially in the summer when it is more humid), bread recipes need less water/liquid than stated, because the flour is already absorbing moisture from the air. So maybe reduce the liquid in the recipe by 10-15% and see if it gives you a not-so-soupy dough.
Penney, thanks for the comments! I’ll remember that for if our current one breaks. So far, I think it is going on seven years?
Also, I just re-made the no-knead bread last night and put in less water but it looks … eh? It definitely looks like it has gotten bigger but whether it’s soupy underneath the surface, I don’t know yet. When I turn it out today, I’ll report back.
I remember making it and it being really soupy and I just dumped it into a Dutch oven andbaked it anyway. It definitely was bread, though I didn’t think worth the prethought.