291546 Sun Jan 12 10:26:48 -0800 2003 18 27 General Chowhounding Topics 0 1587277 HELP! I recently purchased a 7cup Cuisinart, thinking it would be the perfect addition to my of late, baking kitchen. I'm a bread fanatic, and I figured why not? It's not working nearly as well as I thought, and I almost think I'm better off doing it all by hand as usual. Any tips? Anyone else have a Cuisinart? Sun Jan 12 10:26:48 -0800 2003 0 eatmoreoften 1 1587281 I use the large Cuisinart all the time to make bread. I find it very simple. Can you give us an idea of what seems to be going wrong for you? Then maybe we can help. Pat G. Sun Jan 12 11:44:48 -0800 2003 1587277 0 Pat Goldberg 2 1587331 The blade seems to be getting stuck. After a few 'whirrs' it doesn't seem to be doing anything, any movement. I guess the dough blade is getting stuck. They say use the dough blade for 3 or more cups of flour, which is what I'm doing, but I'm thinking maybe that dough blade just isn't strong enough. Mon Jan 13 05:31:53 -0800 2003 1587281 0 eatmoreoften 3 1587332 I always use the steel blade. The dough blade has never been anywhere in my kitchen except in the drawer. Also, perhaps you do not have enough liquid in there? Pat G. Mon Jan 13 07:52:30 -0800 2003 1587331 0 Pat Goldberg 4 1587362 I, like Pat, use my large Cuisinart to make bread all the time, always with the steel blade. It works fine, and I usually have 6 cups of flour in there. When making heavier, whole wheat dough, it processes much more slowly and tries to walk off the counter, but the result is fine. Mon Jan 13 13:05:15 -0800 2003 1587332 0 lucia 5 1587365 Let me add that, before I got my larger cuisinart, I made smaller batches in the little guy with no trouble -- but always with the steel blade. If you happen to have Julia's The Way to Cook, she has an excellent discussion in there for using a food processor to make bread. Mon Jan 13 13:27:18 -0800 2003 1587362 0 Pat Goldberg 6 1587483 Thank you all for your help! I will try with the steel blade, and I will check out what Julia has to say :) Tue Jan 14 05:49:20 -0800 2003 1587365 0 eatmoreoften 1 1587398 I have never had success using the Cuisinart for making bread dough. I stick with my old KitchenAid mixer. Mon Jan 13 16:30:26 -0800 2003 1587277 0 LBQT 2 1587414 Interesting. I always found the KitchenAid clumsy. I suppose, for me at least, it is a matter of figuring out how to do it in one or the other and not having the patience to learn a second technique. Pat G. Mon Jan 13 17:18:38 -0800 2003 1587398 0 Pat Goldberg 2 1587431 Call me an oddball, but whenever I make bread the hand-kneading is what makes the experience whole for me. And I swear it makes better bread. Mon Jan 13 17:49:56 -0800 2003 1587398 0 GG Mora 3 1587438 GG -- I certainly don't think you're an oddball. But perhaps you are among the few people who has really developed the skill of kneading by hand. For a while when I was in France, I knew some French women who made bread by hand, almost every single day. This was by no means an uncommon thing, either. But one thing that I noticed was that there was, usually, someone else nearby to "spell" the kneader. Meaning it was tag-team kneading. I've never known anyone who was champion enough of a kneader to keep up continuous, rigorous, thorough pressure for the requisite "8-10 minutes" needed for most doughs. Also, for rich or sticky doughs that can be more like 15 minutes. Even if people can keep it up for that perod of time, there is usually a lessening of pressure and relaxation in the kneaders hands, that can have a detrimental affect on the dough. You may be one of those, now rare, people who can keep up that pressure and movement needed to knead really elastic dough, and get excellent gluten production. I've made the same recipe many times (both white and whole wheat varieties) by hand and by KitchenAid mixer, and never approximated the successby hand that I've had with the machine. The crumb was never as fine, the dough never got quite as elastic, etc. Now, if I had a pro French grandma in the kitchen to spell me on the kneading, perhaps I'd turn out as good a product -- or maybe if I had someone of your abilities to help. I know people have made good bread by hand for thousands of years, but I just can't produce as good a result with my own pair of shoulders as with a Kitchenaid. Perhaps you use it as an upper body workout? I make bread for the general consumption in our house, and if I had to to knead it by hand every time I made it we'd never have very good or very abundant bread :). However, I agree the feel of dough in your hands is great. I often knead by hand for about an minute after the machine does the work, just to "feel" that the consistency is right. I guess I get my tactile fix that way. If you have a specific technique you have that avoids the severe fatigue I've experienced when kneading, please share. Mon Jan 13 18:26:08 -0800 2003 1587431 0 Mrs. Smith 4 1587444 I have an original, small Cuisinart. Although it claimed to be able to make bread dough, the plastic dough blade didn't work well, and ended up with impossible to clean dough up inside it every time, when it wasn't firmly glued to the stem. So I always made bread by hand. It never bothered me to knead it. I developed a feel for that when I went to cooking school, becoming one with the dough. I remember when I went to college and took a modern dance class that started at 8 am, pretty early. One day the instructor decided to have us start with an exercise where we closed our eyes, imagining the space around us as *something*, and exploring it physically. After we were done, she remarked on how appealing I made it seem. That space was a cocoon of warm, soft bread dough. When my ancient 3 1/2 qt KitchenAid (used only for pastry) burned out, I took it to try and get it repaired. The motor was no longer available, and I got the 4 1/2 qt size. I have never made bread dough by hand since. I have made bread much more often than if I did not have one, plus, I make pasta, which I can't imagine kneading by hand (with my pathetic wrists). The folks at King Arthur feel that machinery is the way to go for producing bread dough. They think that bread machine doughs are best, followed closely by mixers, then handmade. Mon Jan 13 19:05:54 -0800 2003 1587438 0 ironmom 5 1587454 They are just going with the flow of civilization - you can produce fine bread by each of these methods - but why fight a rearguard action for manual work when you can sell the laborsaving appliances plus the flour to feed them? That is the only way they will persuade most people to bake and buy flour in our modern society, with the time pressures we all face. Mon Jan 13 20:44:16 -0800 2003 1587444 0 jen kalb 4 1587453 I beg to differ. My mother made excellent traditional white bread. sufficent to feed our household (8 loaves plus two trays of sweet rolls) "by hand" weekly through my growing up years and beyond; at 80 she still makes bread though not as frequently, since my Dad likes to make it too. Her mother made bread by hand for her family also (and I am sure her mothers mother, etc.). I am sure certain muscles develop over time and there is an art to these things---she also won a blue ribbon at the state fair for her bread, as well as many other things, so certainly she has talent, as well as constant application. I think this is one area where practice and experience do help make perfect - I find that during periods when I have made bread, my kneading skills have improved as I keep at it from week to week - it involves getting in a rhythm, not adding too much flour, lots of sort of inchoate things that make a difference and make the process more enjoyable. But its still hard work and hard on the wrists - I am sure that if my Mom and Grandmother had had cuisinarts and Kichenaids they wouldnt have developed their manual skills to the same degree. Mon Jan 13 20:40:33 -0800 2003 1587438 0 jen kalb 5 1587464 My mother had a bucket with a crank on it she used to pay us to turn, which would knead the dough. It was really hard work. Mon Jan 13 22:27:52 -0800 2003 1587453 0 ironmom 6 1587488 This may be one area where the traditional way was easier - I can imagine that turning a crank, against pressure all that time was pretty painful! Tue Jan 14 08:16:33 -0800 2003 1587464 0 jen kalb 7 1587489 My mother used to make a dozen loaves of whole wheat bread at a time to sell, back before it was a common item. That would have been too much for all of us to handle. A fairly large Hobart would be my choice, now. Tue Jan 14 08:24:13 -0800 2003 1587488 0 ironmom 4 1587455 I climb rocks, so kneading is a great workout for my fingers, hands, forearms, shoulders, upper back... And something about making personal contact with the yeast. There's a bakery here in Vermont (Baba a Louis) that used to have several (three) locations, and the personality of the bread from each was radically different. Once I started checking in at the various locations, I understood why. One was populated by Deadheads, another by a hard rock crowd and the third by classical and jazz afficionados, and at each bakery they constantly listened to their music of choice. The Deadheads made a rustic loaf, a little dense and soggy and overly yeasty. The rockers made gnarly, firm-crusted assertively bready loaves. The classical/jazz crowd made the most refined bread of the three -- consistently fine-crumbed, crisp-crusted and balanced in flavor. All from the same recipes. It remains a testament to the human touch in breadmaking. Mon Jan 13 20:44:36 -0800 2003 1587438 0 GG Mora 1 1587433 Another good cookbook to check out is "The Best Bread Ever" by Charles van Over. The author swears by the food processor method of making bread and has some good advice on how to do it. Mon Jan 13 18:02:48 -0800 2003 1587277 0 Oliver J.