April 16, 2020 - 12:32pm
English Muffins and Kneading Time
A few days ago I made the BBA's English Muffins for the first time. I used my KitchenAid Pro 600 to knead and it took a really long time, like 40 minutes, for the dough to come up to 77 degrees.
Today I tried again, and I figured my buttermilk was too cold last time so I made sure that it was room temperature this time. Still, It has taken just over 30 minutes for the dough to come to temperature, and that is kneading between speed 2 and 4.
This seems excessive to me and I wonder what gives. Is it the type of dough? I have no idea!
Any thoughts?
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I just looked at the recipe in my copy of the book, and in addition to a target dough temp of 77 degrees, it also indicates that it should take about 10 minutes of mixing. I think you are way overdoing the mixing time, so you have a couple of options. Start with ingredients that are warmer (primarily the milk/buttermilk) so that your dough temp after mixing is at or close to 77F. Then mix until you achieve the desired windowpane (hopefully around 10 minutes) and move along with the recipe.
If I were making this, I would stop the mix/knead when I reached windowpane. If the dough was lower than the 77F called for in the recipe at that point, I'd find a warm place for it to rise, and count on it taking longer than what is printed in the recipe due to the temperature difference.
BTW, how did the previous batch that you mixed for 40 minutes turn out?
R
They turned out great! And the windowpane test also took a lot of time.
Next time I'll maybe warm up the buttermilk/milk a bit and do the windowpane test earlier