Broken Philosophy?

The title of this blogpost is in response to my previous post: "The Philosophy of Baking." I've been using the kitchen aid a lot, mostly because it makes baking significantly less messy than baking my hand because everything is contained in a single bowl. This is especially helpful when I am making bread because usually kneading the bread is a rather messy process. However, it is a learning process.

I decided to make Wild Yeast's More Sour Sourdough with my Kitchen Aid, as the recipe calls for a mixer. However, I didn't account for the requirements of the mixer at all. I made a dough that I amped up to 77% hydration, because this is a reasonable hydration to knead by hand. At this point, the dough hook hardly seemed to work at all. I also did not properly account for the temperature correctly; the bread ended up having its bulk fermentation cut short and it produced loaves where not all the water cooked out of the bread.

Next time I will know better. Perhaps even the dryer dough will work better with the Kitchen Aid.

The Philosophy of Baking

So yesterday our Kitchen Aid mixer came. Servia and I decided that would be our early Christmas present and we could use it for some holiday baking. We searched around for a while and found a refurbished one on the Kitchen Aid website. Excited to try it out, we made two batches of cookie dough last night.

The Kitchen Aid is shockingly efficient. In about 30 seconds it can cream butter and sugar to a consistency that it would take me at least 10 minutes to achieve. It was amazing.

Creamed Butter and Sugar

The one thing that bothers me is that with this machine baking is a streamlined process. Although I certainly sample the fruits of my baking, I started baking in order to relieve stress. Baking is very physical-- creaming butter or kneading bread requires strength and skill. Even though I have been remiss on hitting the gym (and I primarily do cardio when I have), I have little muscles in my arms from kneading bread dough. Without the physicality of baking, it turns the stress relief from stress baking to stress eating, which can be very dangerous. So is this appliance going to ruin how I bake?

No. In reality, the efficiency can be extremely helpful. I often have to make a dessert for my final class of a session, etc when I'm stressed and have other things to do. Furthermore, one of the batches of cookies I made last night are my dark chocolate shortbread cookies. These cookies are a big hit, but they are actually more frustrating to bake than I would like. The dough is extremely dry and very hard to combine to the correct consistency. The Kitchen Aid made them without the frustration and they were suddenly both simple and delicious.

Thus, I have (quickly) made peace with the mini-factory in the kitchen. I will still probably make almost all of my bread by hand (with the exception of trying this amazing loaf of deliciousness that I've been eying for ages). However, over the holidays when efficiency is paramount, I have a feeling the new Kitchen Aid and I will become fast friends.