Dry dough/adding water
Okay, so I tested a new recipe out using the dough cycle on my bread machine. The recipe was WAY too dry, and I added like a 1/2 cup of water while it was kneading. Loaves came out wonderful.
So I decided to make a larger batch by hand (my regular loaf I make in 8 loaf batches), and left out what I THOUGHT was enough flour, but still ended up being too dry, so I attempted to add water as I was kneading. The result was terrible. The dough just never worked like dough should, like breaking apart, and it hardly rose.
When I make my regular 8 loaf stretch and fold batch, if it accidentally gets a tad dry, I mist it with water, fold it up, mist the outside and wait for the next fold. Usually seems to work out fine.
I guess my question is, why would water ruin the dough while hand kneading, but not using the bread machine?
Thanks so much!
Could be a number of things. I would've thought that hand kneading would work out better when adding water by feel. A bread machine leaves little for changes.
What is your recipe and what are you trying to achieve? Perhaps we can tweak the formula instead of resulting to trial and error.