Kneading gloves ???
I was looking at Fantes website and stumbled across a pair of kneading gloves, made of nylon. I never knew such a thing existed. Now I'm wondering if these gloves might be useful. I never considered using disposable gloves because I figured they would make kneading/mixing more difficult, not easier, and I don't really mind the dough stuck to my hands. I make all of my bread by hand, as I don't have a stand mixer. I actually have a harder time with the tendency to add too much flour when kneading/mixing the stiffer doughs than the more slack doughs. I'm wondering if the floured gloves would be useful---if not the nylon ones on Fantes website, maybe just some old-fashioned cotton gloves that have been floured?
I'm wondering whether using a fabric glove, with flour rubbed in well, would be like the teflon effect of a well used, flour encrusted couche? Would you use AP flour or rice flour on the gloves?
Another advantage would be transferring less heat from the hands to the dough, especially in the summer when the kitchen is warmer.
Has anyone tried this? Or have any opinions on how it might work?
although mention of latex gloves has... Nylon, like panty hose for the hands? What do they look like?
I like the heat to go from my hands to the dough. I can't imagine cleaning dough crusted gloves. I don't use a dish cloth on a floured counter for that very reason, use an onion or garlic net bag and my bench scraper.
Now for cold cookie dough, maybe. For you I will flour some cotton gloves... I must be crazy!
Your last sentence made me chuckle. Of course, most of us probably are a bit crazy to be so obsessed with every little detail of bread making.
I thank you for testing this theory for me. If the gloves are too dough encrusted, you can send them to me for laundering. Actually, I had hoped that perhaps the gloves could be treated like a couche---allow to dry, chip off the chunks of dough, and put away for the next use. Or maybe not.
If you want to see what the official kneading gloves look like, just google "kneading gloves" and you'll find a surprisingly large number of links. Fantes and even Amazon have pictures, as well as a number of other sites. they look very much like the Ove gloves.
I'll look forward to hearing how the gloves work out for you.
They're a little buttery and I lasted all of one minute. If even that. Maybe leaner dough is better. I can't feel the dough temp and naked fingers in dough doesn't bother me. Feels like the gloves are keeping me from the dough. Feels really wierd! :)
I just checked out images. Heck, these knitted gloves are sold in China by the 10 pack! I think I have a bale of these around somewhere! Everyone wears them! They get dipped into red plastic for garden gloves! I'll try a pair of them out but not on rye dough. I prefer wet hands then. ok, later...
A pair of good fitting syhthetic fabric gloves sprayed with non-stick spray might work just as well. Interesting concept.
you know, some people have "green" fingers (/thumbs) and there are "handy" people and in Japanese we have "Joo-zu" (skilled) people with 'upper (superior) hands'...
I wash my bare hands (about half as long as a surgeon does, by all accounts) before I touch my baking ingredients, even though I know that any germs remaining on my hands and going into my dough will be dead by the time my loaf is baked...and I DO dislike it when my high-hydration doughs stick to my hands...
Nevertheless, I'm definitely going to give this one a miss...I think I need MORE general information and, in baking, a lot of it comes from the 'feel' of the dough, in my opinion. Any barrier to that, no matter how fine, is going to interfere with "info-input".
Anyway, I read TFL because I want more info. I'd never even heard of kneading gloves before, so thanks a lot Genoa, for the heads-up!
Cheers, and thank you, Genoa,
copyu
PS: On second thought, maybe I should get just ONE kneading glove! The phone never seems to ring, here, except when I'm up to the wrists in hand-mixing or kneading dough...Heheheh! copyu
Hi Genoa
I am pleased to say that having handled a lot of dough with my hands over the years as a baker and oiling pans and trays at the end of the day that my hands are free of the callouses that many of my friends have from their years of physical labour. They are soft to the touch and almost always nice and warm. When i was working away from the trade as the education officer at the Metropolitan Transport Trust i was showing a colleague that it was easier to count out a bundle of A4 handout sheets and just put a pile next to it and run your finger over the top and be able to tell if you had the same number in the 2nd pile rather than counting again, to which she replied she would love to have a man with fingers like that. i really didnt have an answer to that.
I find that if dough really does stick to your hands then a plastic scraper will remove the bulk and a rub together removes most of the rest and a (DUSTING) of flour will help a lot, but as the dough develops it comes away anyway.
I find there is nothing better than to feel the dough on your skin and you straight away can tell how the dough is going, gloves for me would reduce the tactile senses that i find enjoyable. I do wear gloves for protection ie welding, gardening and first aid but i dont feel i need protection from the dough or it from me.
One of the things i see is if you go into a food shop and the staff wear the latex gloves invariably they handle the money in the gloved hand or the till.
regards Yozza
I found a used bread maker at the Salvation Army thrift store for $4.00. The thing looked like it had only been used a couple of times. If you don't want to use gloves, you might want to consider a bread machine, if only for the mixing purposes. The one I bought has a "dough only" setting that mixes the starter, flour and water and then cuts off ("turns off" for some parts of the English speaking world) automatically. I take out the dough, shape it, put it into a loaf pan, let it rise and bake it. Probably the best $4.00 (US currency) investment I've ever made!
well done, good buy there
I think there are lots of near new bread machines out there either used once or unwanted gifts and indeed bargains to be had .