After 6 months of fighting with a stand mixer I finally tried hand kneading and the difference is insane

I've been using my KitchenAid for everything because I thought it was faster but my sourdough always came out dense. Last week I decided to hand knead a batch for 15 minutes straight and the crumb structure was way better. Has anyone else noticed their machine overworks the dough compared to doing it by hand?

2 comments

2 Comments

xena_murphy19d ago

I had to read that twice - fifteen minutes of hand kneading? That sounds exhausting compared to just letting the mixer run. But I guess you proved your point if the crumb turned out that much better.

oliviapatel18d ago

Definitely agree with what you're finding here but let me ask @xena_murphy something real quick - have you actually compared a hand kneaded batch side by side with your mixer? I used to think the same way until I did a blind test with my neighbor and we both picked the hand kneaded loaf every single time. The machine runs hotter and can tighten gluten too fast which traps yeast instead of stretching it. Fifteen minutes sounds like a lot but it's mostly just getting into a rhythm, not actual hard work.