Traded my stand mixer for hand kneading after 20 years

I started baking bread back in 2003 with my grandmother's old recipe and a wooden bowl. Around 2015 I got a nice KitchenAid and used it for everything, loaves, pizza dough, even rolls. But last fall I had to pick between fixing the motor for $180 or going back to hand kneading like I did in my twenties. I chose the hands, mostly because I was tired of the noise and the machine always jumping around on the counter. Honestly the first two weeks my shoulders ached something fierce, especially on the rye dough I make every Sunday. But now my bread has a better crumb, I can feel the gluten develop, and I actually pay attention to the dough instead of walking away. Has anyone else gone backward from a machine to doing it by hand and noticed a real difference in texture?

1 comments

1 Comment

miles27724d ago

You said the crumb is better now, but that's probably not from hand kneading itself. A machine develops gluten faster and more evenly, so if anything the crumb should be worse with hands unless you changed the recipe or proofing time. More likely you're just paying closer attention to the dough now, which makes you notice and correct small things earlier.