November 5, 2011 - 8:57pm
Cuisinart 7 qt and Small Batches
Just bought this machine to replace a KA that died. (I wanted the DLX, but everyone was out of stock and I needed something soon.) Anyway, I did a small, 1 baguette batch of dough and wasn't impressed. The hook never really caught the dough and the outside edge of the hook just tugged at the dough ball stuck to the side of the bowl, moving it just a bit with every pass. There was no turning the dough on top of itself like I got with the KA. However, the dough seemed to have a fair bit of strengh at the end of the mix and I've got it fermenting now. Is this normal with small batches on the Cuisinart?
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which blade were you using ? I have a new 7 qt. and it came with the "dough blade" as well as hte normal metal one. check your destruction book .. for small batches you need to use the regular metal blades, specifically cause the dough blade doesn't reach all the dough .
Dough blade? I've never heard of such a thing for a mixer. Now, a food processor has a dough blade, which everyone says never use. Are you talking about a food processor or mixer?
Thanks
sorry .. yes .. I was talking about the food processor. I have the cuisinart 7 C and the dough blade. I can attest that the dough blade works great.
I also have the Kitchenaide mixer .. and use it, but the food processor makes short work of any size doughs.
Glad we got that settled. ;-) I was going to be very impressed if you had a 7 quart food processor. I have exactly the reverse of you....I now have the Cuisinart mixer but I have a 7 cup KA food processor.
My original post was about the Cuisinart mixer, not the food processor. A 7 quart food processor would be an enormous machine, nothing you'll find in a home kitchen. ;-)
I own - and heavy duty use - my 7-qt. Cuisinart for 4 years now, mostly for pre-doughs and batches of up to 2 breads. Though I would no try whipping one lonely egg white with it, it's doing pretty well with smaller amounts of dough. Unlike my KA Artisan, and, also, the 6-qt. KA Professional (which I just bought), with the Cuisinart I don't have to switch from paddle to dough hook during the mix, and, also, very rarely have to scrape down the sides of the bowl (a real time saver!).
But one circumstance can make it difficult for the machine to grab a smaller amount of dough - if you have to clean the bowl between mixes you should dry it well! Usually I don't have to wash the bowl between different batches, little leftover dough traces don't matter if you work from "light to dark", and mix one after the other. But a bowl with heavy, sticky (rye) dough traces, or a clean, but wet bowl makes the initial mixing more difficult.
I do like the bells and whistles the Cuisinart comes with, the timer with auto shut-off is immensely practical (it's often difficult to hear a kitchen timer over the noise of a running mixer).
And, since somebody mentioned it - much as I like Cuisinart products - their zealous striving for maximum safety is really a pain! It makes it so difficult to clean the food processor, and then their short cables! Do those engineers all have kitchen counters at home with an outlet per every foot of counter width? Is it really safer to have several extension cables clogging the precious counter space?
Karin