Skip to main content

kneading by hand





If you have been frustrated with your breads, most likely it was not the because of the ingredients but with the way you mix the dough. When i was just starting to learn how to bake breads, i went around Bakery Trade and Food Expositions, talked to the big guys on the field and the most important thing i was told is to have a very good mixer.

But if you do not have one, is is possible to make breads at all? Yes, you can. You can knead your way to any kind of breads, as long as you develop the gluten. Most of my students would take an average of at least 25 minutes to a good 45 minutes to knead half a kilogram of dough.

When you knead, ignore the stickiness, do not rely always on the flour to remove the stickiness because once the gluten develops, this nasty stickiness will disappear. The dough should be smooth and elastic and i hate to say this, i have not encountered a student who kneaded his or her dough in under 25 minutes. Fine, you can bake your dough if you knead it in 10 minutes or so, but the quality of the bread will be dry and heavy, gummy and dry in just 2 days.

So for as long as the dough you are kneading is rough, keep kneading. Just think about saving money on your personal trainer, this is an excellent workout!!!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First Trial Pandesal

This is an email from Jorge Garcia, he just downloaded a copy of the ebook last week and he already made his first pandesal. To you Jorge, wait till you try the other breads, i recommend the monay which is my all time personal favorite indulgence, meaning, when i want to pig out and stuff breads in my mouth with just plain coffee while i watch tv. No palaman just plain monay. After reading the ebook for 3 times, you will be able to learn more of the techniques and procedures. I am happy for you. Hi Sher, OMG, almost perfect on the first try !  Thank you! I read your ebooks (twice) over the long weekend and tried to absorb as much as I can.  Although I  encountered some of the concepts in my research your ebooks were amazingly informative.   I read about the idea of poolish and biga before but was not paying attention to them because all the recipes I found for pandesal did not use them.  When you advised that I make a sponge overnight and menti...
Post a Comment
Read more

Cutting Pandesal, Baston Style

So how do we really do the Baston style "singkit" cut? First start with a slightly stiff dough, if your dough does not have eggs or eggyolks, a hydration of around 55% is ideal. I have seen bakers use less water, but that will make your Pandesal too dry and dense after 1 day or so so try to keep it slightly on the soft side, but not too sticky. Why? If you use a sticky dough for the Baston style cut, the dough will spread and will have a flat look rather than a rounded shape we are all familiar with. In Tagalog, "lalapad" ang dough so medyo flat ung Pandesal. So after you mix the dough, divide it into 2 to 4 portions if you are mixing  kilogram. Experienced bakers divide their dough into 500 gram portions, i do mine the same way. Flatten the dough, focusing more on the length and not on the height. The height of the dough should be around 2 to 3 inches only. Next, fold the dough while pinching the edges making sure the dough surface ...
3 comments
Read more

3rd Class Flour, What's It All About

For starters i cannot make this Hard Monay if i did not bring any 3rd class flour or soft weak flour to New York. Once i ran out of 3rd class and tried Cake Flour, it turned bad, do not even think of using All Purpose, it will be soft but not chewy as this one made with yes, 3rd class indeed. So third class is hard to find here in the US if you will use that term. You have to say or look for soft wheat flour, that's it, not hard wheat flour, not cake or All purpose but something in between these two. It is easy to find in the Phil., just ask your local bakery suppliers and they know it is Tercera. Tercera is not for bread, bakers use it basically for cookies, cakes and other pastries, but we bakers know how to create bread recipes using part of this flour with the bread flour or hard wheat flour. It makes a softer version of any of your fave breads, with a cheaper price tag. Plus if i own a bakery, i get to use the third class for my cakes and cookies, lowering my food cos...
19 comments
Read more