Submitted by whatever868686 on June 24, 2008 - 7:39am
Hi guys, just wondering. Lets say we have all these ingredients, how should I mix them. In what order. Lets assume we want to mix all of these ingredients without autolysing.
- Flour
- Yeast
- Salt
- Water
- Sugar
- Eggs
- Butter
From what I read, we add the wet ingredients slowly to the dry ingredients then add butter last (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/7697/why-add-butter-last). And..hmm..why add wet ingredients to dry ingredients.
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U answered your own Q
It depends on what I'm making. I always autolyse.
What if I mix alphabetically? I end up with cookies! (no specs on amounts in the list)
The secret is in the details.... more please.
Mini O
Dry to wet.
I find it easier to add the dry ingredients to the wet; that way I can control the amount of flour. If, by autolysing you mean resting, I get about a third of the way through the kneading, cover the dough with a bowl, and let it rest for up to 30 minutes. Then I slam the dough down on the table a couple of times and continue with the kneading, a very old-fashioned way of doing things I know, but there you are. You can always skip the resting of the dough; quite often, I'm resting my hands more than the dough!
"I find it easier to add the
"I find it easier to add the dry ingredients to the wet; that way I can control the amount of flour."
He he, and I do the reverse because then I can control the amount of water. :)
This also may depend on your mixing technique. For a lot of my doughs, I put things together by blending the dry ingredients, dumping everything out onto the counter, making a large well, and then adding the wet ingredients. I then incorporate the dry until I get a rough dough, and then start needing by hand. Obviously, this doesn't work if you do things the other way 'round.
Incidentally, I also tend to leave out the salt until after the dough has autolyzed, as salt will inhibit gluten development. I then do a kneed, rest, add salt, then final kneed to finish the dough up and incorporate the salt.
Autolyse
Autolyse is classically done without a riser. It is done with a portion of the flour and water, and then added to the final dough as an ingredient.
Some people include about the first 30 minutes a dough made with dry yeast is sitting as an autolyse because the yeast is still being rehydrated and activated. I understand the point, but don't agree. It blurs the term too much for my liking.
In his recent whole wheat book, Peter Reinhart commented something like, "one person's poolish is another person's biga." Well. ahh, yeah. Especially if they have no understanding of what a poolish or biga are. What would happen if automobile mechanics used terms interchangeably, esoteric terms like "engine" and "transmission" and "thingamabobby"? "One mechanic's engine is another mechanic's transmission!" No way! This isn't something that we should shrug off, it's something that should prompt better education.
Mike
Interesting, I thought
Interesting, I thought autolysing involved combining *all* of the flour and water into a shaggy ball, which is then allowed to rest for a while so the gluten can begin to develop. Then, yeast, salt, and other ingredients are incorporated and the dough is kneeded to it's final consistency. Certainly this baking lesson presumes that definition, and also matches the description in Reinhart's BBA.
'course, using that definition, you technically can't autolyse a sourdough that uses a liquid starter directly, at least based on the strict definition, as you need the water from the starter to fully hydrate the dough.
Can we interrupt this for just a second
Since we're on the subject of getting clear definitions, would someone be so kind as to define the term "shaggy" in reference to dough texture? I've seen it used more than a few times on this board and, at first, thought it was just the poster's personal descriptive for their dough at a particular point in development.
But I've seen the term pop up a fair bit from several people and now I'm under the imprssion it's a specific term. However, other than saying their dough is "shaggy" (which conjures up visions of rugs for me, child of the 70's) I still have no real idea what it's really supposed to mean.
--------
Paul
Well, if you look at that
Well, if you look at that picture in the lesson link I posted above, I define "shaggy" as just a wet ball that hasn't been worked into a nice, silky dough. Basically, you just combine the water with the flour just to get it hydrated, without really working it.
Salt
OK, i'm no expert, but my impression was that salt inhibited the yeast, but helped the gluten. I've actually been thinking about starting a thread on this very question, as I've run into more conflicting information on the subject of salt than any other that I can think of, and I really don't know where the truth lies.
Russ
You know, from what I can
You know, from what I can tell, it *might* actually be both. On the one hand, salt may inhibit the initial development of the gluten network. But once established, adding salt then tightens up the dough and improves the structure.
Or, at least, that's what "The Village Baker: Classic Regional Breads from Europe and America" suggests... according to Google. :)
Salt...
Salt's inhibition of yeast is dependent upon the amount of yeast used. Most bread formulas use around 2% yeast as a baker's percentage. At this level, yeast doesn't seem to be sinificantly inhibited. I suspect that if you add enough yeast to inhibit the yeast activity, you'll taste the salt in the bread pretty plainly.
Salt is also an anti-oxidant. It prevents the dough from being bleached by air. Calvel strongly suggests adding it at the beginning of the mixing process. I agree with him.
Mike
Well, it's not a question of
Well, it's not a question of yeast inhibition as the effect of salt on gluten development.
That said, it's role as an antioxidant is interesting. Of course, I typically add the salt after the autolyze, and so the salt is present during the majority of the kneeding which, presumably, means that it's still effective as an antioxidant.
Interestingly, if you watch the video of Julia Child and her guest putting together french bread (which is where I got my crazy scheme :), she uses the frisage technique to hydrate the flour, kneeds a bit, autolyses it, then adds the salt and yeast and does a final kneed to finish it up.
In the end, I really should just do a couple experiments... something tells me, in the end, the differences are minor to non-existent between the two approaches...
It all depends
Mixing order kinda depends on how you're mixing.
If you're mixing in a bread machine, follow its instructions.
If you're mixing in a mixer, follow its instructions.
In general, I add the liquid ingredients to a mixing bowl, add the flours, and then the rest of the dry ingredients. I add butters or oils at the same time as the liquid ingredients. No problems yet.
Some people suggest holding back some of the water and adding it towards the end of the mix if it's needed. The idea is that if you play with the amount of flour, you're playing with all the baker's percentages. Suddenly, you don't have enough yeast, salt, and what not (the every important what not!). So, if you hold back the water and add it to adjust the dough consistency, you're not messing up the baker's percentages.
On the other hand, it's not easy to add water to a developed dough. And the amount of flour added with a well made recipe should be pretty small.... it's not the end of the world.
All in all, except for the people who mix on a tabletop and need the flour to act as a dam to contain the liquids it's really not that important.
Mike
In the mix...
I always put water in first. The reason being, if I add water to the dry ingredients I find I always have a pocket of flour that doesn't seem to get incorporated. I mix my dry ingredients and than add them gradually to the water. I very rarely use eggs or butter, but I'm thinking I would put them in last.
wet ingredients then dry ingredients then yeasted water
I start by mixing yeast (I use active dry) and water in a small bowl and setting it aside. Then I mix liquids (including eggs and butter, if it's melted) in a large bowl and mix in the flour and salt with a wooden spoon. I usually add the yeasted water then and let the dough rest (covered) for about half an hour. I know; the books say that the yeast and salt aren't supposed to be there for the autolyse. But the fact that I'm doing it wrong hasn't seemed to affect the bread badly. (Bread is a lot more forgiving than some people say.)
-Elizabeth
edit: so for the recipe in question, I'd mix in the following order:
Set that aside. In another bowl I'd mix
Stir together and mix in
Finally, mix in yeasted water.
At least that's what I'd do if the butter is to be melted. However, if the butter is NOT melted, I'd knead in the butter at end.