Mini Chopper/Food Processer--Dough Question

[Ora]

Can a Cuisinart mini chopper/food processer (4 cup) process small amounts of dough/pastry? Let's say I want to make biscuits with 2 cups flour and 1/2 stick butter, or a small bread recipe or a small pastry recipe? Can this do the job? Just wondering as it is not advertised for dough. But I'd like something small like this for small pastry jobs.
http://www1.macys.com/catalog/product...

[kayakado]

I'd say no don't do it. The mini chopper blade is monted on a plastic cylinder with no internal structure. You will strip out the insides if you try to use it on something that is too hard or overtaxing. I can't remember what I was trying to chop but I stripped one of these and had to get another from Cuisinart.

[Ora]

Hmm, interesting point you make.

[C. Hamster]

Yeah, I was thinking hte same thing.

Mine starts to smell funky when chopping up cheese.

Flour and butter would probably be ok, but dough would probably blow it out.

[MakingSense]

You could also get one of these dough blenders for a lot less money. The OXO model is under $12.
http://fantes.com/images/44022whisks.jpg
I have a stainless steel one that zips butter or lard into flour for pastry or biscuits in a fraction of the time that it would take me to clean my small food processor. It works almost as fast once you get the hang of using this tool.
I get so much better control with it, that I never use the food processor for this task any more. Why bother?

[alkapal]

that's what mom and i use for biscuits.

[tundrah]

I've used mine with the standard blade for pie crust multiple times and it seems to work fine--just usually have to process in 2-3 batches then do a few more hand kneads to get into a cohesive ball.

[Ora]

OK--great. This is just the type of report I was hoping to get. Thanks.

[Channa]

I often use one for making chapati dough (flour, water, salt), and it works great. It's fine for toppings for fruit crumbles. It MIGHT be okay for pie pastry/biscuits -- you'd need very cold butter just as with a large processor. It processes at lightning speed, so you don't have as much control as with a full-size processor, or indeed by hand. It pays not to be too fussy. ;-D I certainly wouldn't use it for yeast dough.

[monku]

I don't think it comes with a plastic mixing blade like the larger Cuisinart processors come with to make dough.

[Ora]

I wonder if the mixing blade could be separately purchased...let me investigate...

[monku]

I looked on the internet at similar Cuisinart mini choppers and didn't see any optional mixing blades or any of them saying you could make dough with them. Only chopping or grinding.

[Ora]

Right. This would be an "off label" use. When I looked at the Cuisinart site, the big food processors come with a chopping/mixing blade that seems to be one in the same. Then there is a separate dough blade. I am guessing that this mini chopper may be able to at least work butter into flour quickly for biscuits and pastry. I suspect Channa is right in that this isn't for yeast dough. But, that would be OK for my purposes. I just want to speed working butter into flour for biscuits and pastry in small amounts like 2-3 cups of flour.

[monku]

Yes, its the dough blade (my mis-call) made out of plastic.

Give it a whirl, worse that can happen is you can still chop and grind.

[Channa]

The big, full-size Cuisinart food processor recommends the metal blade for quick breads using baking powder/soda. Even for yeast breads, the plastic dough blade is used only with large amounts of flour. Smaller recipes, pizza dough for example, use the metal blade. So I wouldn't discount the mini processor for having only a metal blade.

It does, however, hold only a small amount of flour, so unless you're baking small amounts, it wouldn't be very practical.