Howdy,

I made Alabuba's "Lunch Lady Rolls" from http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/19661/lunch-lady-rolls and I'm positive I messed something up because they came out of the oven looking like biscuits. They were tender and had good flavor, but no structure to speak of. The crumb reminds me of a muffin, small and tight.

I was kneading by hand, measuring my ingredients by weight, and best I can come up with is maybe I didn't knead the dough enough?

Aside from 'clears sides of bowl', what characteristics should I be looking for in this, or other rich doughs, when they're trying to show me they're ready?

Thanks.

As a novice baker, I'n trying to soak up as much knowledge as possible, but this predicament I can't seem to find much info on.

How do I know if my dough is too wet versus not kneaded enough?   The reason I ask is because with most breads, mainly white flour breads (AP or bread flour,) it's easy to tell when you've got that silky smooth, highly-developed dough.  My problem comes with whole grain doughs.  It feels like I could knead for hours and still not be able to window pane a piece of it.  Is it too much water? I've tried doing ratios of whole grain to AP/bread flour.  I've added gluten.  The dough never reaches the quality that say, a baguette dough for example, would feel like.  Am I missing something here?

Case in point.  I'm making pita dough for pitas later tonight.  Simple enough.  The recipe describes that the dough should be smooth and stretchy.  Mine isn't.  The recipe called for 3 cups of flour and I used a cup each of WW, AP, and bread flour (all King Arthur brand).  I let the dough rest before kneading so the WW could have time to hydrate.  I kneaded for the prescribed time - 10 minutes on low in a stand mixer; the dough never did quit sticking to the bottom of the mixer, even after adding additional flour several times.  The dough's sticky - not smooth, not elastic.

Is that just the beast with whole grain dough?  The pita bread's proofing right now, so I don't know how the end result will be.  I guess that's another post.

Carlton

A few weeks ago, inspired by Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice (BBA), I decided to make a seed culture-barm-sourdough starter.  My first attempt failed, due, I think, to my impatience rather than a true failure of the process.  My second attempt, seasoned with more patience, worked, and I am baking my first sourdough loaves today.

The BBA recipe for Basic Sourdough Bread states that you can knead the dough by hand for 12-15 minutes, or use the dough hook in your stand mixer and knead for 4 minutes, rest for 5-10, and knead an additional 4 minutes.  I have made bread off and on for about 30 years (since I was 10 years old), and I have always kneaded by hand.  Until recently, that is.  I took a French bread class, and the instructor kneaded the bread in the Kitchen Aid (KA) for the first 5-6 minutes, then finished with the "slap and roll" technique, where you take the dough by the edge in one hand, slam it on the counter for all you're worth, then use the other hand to do a jellyroll.  She said if you don't use the KA to start with, you would slap and roll about 100 times; starting with the KA, you only have to do it about 15-20 times.

I have been using this method for my French bread for a while now, with excellent results.  So I planned to use the KA for my kneading on the sourdough, as instructed in BBA.  But partway through the first 4-minute knead, something happened.  I suddenly realized that I missed kneading by hand, the old fashioned way!  So after the first knead, I put the dough to rest on the counter for a few minutes, then finished kneading by hand.  It was an almost-religious experience.  When the wild yeast started to come alive, the smell was absoulutely intoxicating.  And the time flew by.  The dough was ready to be set aside to ferment before I knew it.

It's good to get back to what I've always known and loved about bread baking.  That's not to say that I will never again opt for the convenience of the KA or the slap and roll, but when I have the time, I will always choose to knead by hand.

Is it possible to achieve window pane kneading by hand? I have never managed to do that with ~68% hydration doughs. I usually just knead till smooth and elastic and call it quits. Am I too lazy?:)

Hi Guys,

I am new to this site though not new to baking by any means.  Have been making my own loaves for several years but now want to give this 'no-knead' technique a go.  Does anyone have a simple basic recipe for a first-timer?  Any tips on how to go about baking my first 'no-knead' loaf?

Many thanks,

Dan 

This is directed to Floydm: