Further Growth As A Baker (Amateur)

    Well, I've completed a couple of weeks without the mixer.  It has been an interesting and informative time.  I have a very nice Kitehcn-Aid which my son gave me for Christmas about 4 years ago.  It was a refurbished machine which works fine and had given no trouble all this time.  Based upon the experience of others, I decided to mix by hand so I could get to know my dough better and to develop a sensibility to its needs.  This is not something you can get from a book, and failure is your best teacher.  Analyzing what went wrong with a bread leads inevitably to better and better bread.  As someone wise once pointed out: "you don't learn anyhing from success".  For very wet doughs or large volumes, the mixer becomes indispensable, but for someone like me who does mostly mufins (which the mixer teds to overmix) and challah variants, I am much happier doing it 'by hand'.  If you disagree, that's fine.  This works for me; I never claimed it would be right for you.  There are many paths to bread success, and each must choose his own.  Adios for now.