There's a tray of hamburger & hotdog buns rising in my dishwasher at the moment. This is not a new idea--Floyd posted about using the dishwasher as a proofing box back in 2005.
I once put four loaves of whole wheat, tinned bread in the back of my van to rise. They turned out great.
I usually make northern cornbread, with half-flour, providing gluten. But southerners SWEAR by southern cornbread, in which one dare not let wheat flour touch the batter. Now I have no trouble adding bacon drippings, which makes it more southerny but why in the world would anyone like cornbread that is crumbly and almost unsliceable? Is it supposed to be more flavorful? Never noticed that.
Hi,
I recently bought a 6 qt stand loft kitchen aid mixer. I've been doing large batches of a very wet enriched dough (1300g flour) every week. However I am having difficulty getting it to knead evenly-- I find some areas to be slack and others to be just right or tight.
I'm curious if others manually flip their dough around, and how frequently.
I have one arm, so it's very tough for me to lift the full dough mass, especially in the early stages, but disregard that fact unless you have some suggestions!
The book is just packed with information for all its audiences, from home bakers to professionals, It might not be ideal for absolute beginners because there is just so much information there.
I have been using the book (2nd and now 3rd editions) since I started baking bread, well before COVID. Every now and then I browse some of the general information, and I usually learn (or often re-learn) something useful.
Here are a couple of things that are relatively inconspicuous but are very helpful:
In "Bread". Hamelman writes that he used to think wrongly that larger batches of dough developed (gluten) faster than smaller batches. However, larger batches of dough do ferment faster.
He explains that smaller batches develop gluten faster because each turn of the mixer in a small batch manipulates a higher percentage of the dough than in a large batch.
