Pasta Experiment: Mixer vs Hand Kneading
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- Опубліковано 18 січ 2023
- Pasta Experiment: Mixer vs Hand Kneading
Pasta by Hand vs. with a Food Processor vs. with a Mixer
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Hands down this is why I love Helen. The obsessiveness and insane detail she provides. I learn so much about technique correction!!!!!! One of my all time favourite cooking UA-camrs
So many people asked about bread flour vs. all-purpose vs. semolina vs. 00. I made a video about it already. It's linked in the description below. It seems like everyone has theories about why the mixer dough is wetter. Is my wood board absorbing water? It's not a wood board. It's a finished wood counter. As far as I am aware it's not porous. I can leave a beet on it and wipe it off 2 hours later. It's possible that this counter is absorbing some moisture, but it's not likely. Are my hands heating the dough? That one I can tell you definitely. My hands are insanely cold. The dough that I kneaded by hand was much cooler than the dough that came out of a mixer. Of course, if a warm handed person was kneading this dough, it might have ended up stickier. As far as the kneading time. A mixer with a spiral hook is very aggressive. 8 min by hand doesn't equal 8 min in a mixer. I have let the pasta dough run longer than 6 min in the past and it didn't get any less sticky. The point of this video was not to come up with a theory. The point was to describe a phenomenon.
Might just be that hand kneading is longer. The dough has time to autolyse. You could try to let the mixer dough rest a few minutes between mixing and kneading to see if it changes anything
I'm surprised that you don't have a step in the kneading or rolling where you titrate the amount of flour in until the dough reaches the appropriate dryness by feel. I appreciate the step where you carefully weigh all the ingredients, but even that doesn't really capture the properties of them. For example, if you go from Bob's semolina to an italian one that is much finer, the same weight seems to react and absorb the egg way differently. But what I always end up doing ist just ballpark the initial eggs to flour ratio and then add a little bit of flour, roll it out a bit, a bit more flour, roll again, etc... until I like the dryness of the sheets. (btw, among the four methods, cast my vote for the fully automated: kitchen-aid dough hook with the kpra pasta attachments. my arms got tired just watching the other ones :-D).
So one more test - Let the mixer knead the bread for longer.
Sorry to be pedantic, but for some reason (okay, it's creationists) the misuse of the word theory must be guarded against. The term your looking for is hypothesis.
@@mikenute7477 True, but she is using identical brands and weights in all tests, and the mixer version still comes out wetter/stickier, so what she is describing is a proven phenomenon in practice. There is something about the way that particular dough is treated that causes it, not the fine-tuning of her ingredient amounts.
I have limited ability to knead by hand due to arthritis in my neck and hand, so this gives me hope! My family loves the homemade pasta I made after finding your channel but it came with a price. Right after dinner I needed to head to bed and am usually in pain for at least a day after. Can't wait to try the "all stand mixer" method.
Eat butter
Don' get me wrong I think Helen is the most awesome and I have the utmost respect for her and can't wait to try a lot of her recopies. Understanding your situation, I just wanted to let you know that (and I still consider myself a beginner) that the stand mixer method with a dough hook does work. Don't give up if you enjoy. If your family enjoys home made pasta possibly ask one of the younger or older ones to help, maybe a new family adventure. I'm 62 plus and my wife ( love her dearly) wants nothing to do with pasta making, however she likes homemade over store bought anytime. Looks to me that I now have a new kitchen purpose LOL Best wishes from Washington State.
PS the pic on my posting is what we call Oren and Sheryl the really early years, circa the early 80's
I love your in detailed research on all recipes! 💜
I love your practical tips and practice-science approach to testing.
Perfectly timed video, thank you. Yesterday I decided to get back into pasta making. I did it by hand, it was perfect, but I will try with my spiral dough hook as standing kneading really makes my back ache. I very much appreciate your in depth videos. Have a great week.
Yes! I repeated this experiment, and it works!
Amazing video. Thanks for putting this together. Very helpful.
A day with a new Helen video is a good day. 🥰
Thank Goodness for you and your expertise. I’m on a pasta making kick and I love making it. I bought the pasta extruded with different dyes and just love making different shapes. I don’t care for Kitchen Aid’s recipe though, it’s too tough. I’m Italian so I find making pasta by hand a tradition that I enjoy doing but admit challenging. I just love that you used a bowl to contain the ingredients that kept everything together and helped form a ball and keeps your counter clean as well!! I’ve learned that you freeze as soon as it’s made, dry pasta should dry naturally then packed away, not put in freezer! I didn’t know water could be substituted for eggs and measuring by weight is more accurate. I’ve done it by hand and processor only. I like them both. Now to know which flour is better is another challenge. Simple ingredients, delicious meals, and yet so challenging to make.
thank you for this experiment! Because I have issues with my hands, I can't knead more than a minute or two. I invested in a Kitchenaid with a spiral hook. I was told by Kitchenaid that when making pasta dough to start with the paddle attachment to mix and bring together to start with, then switch to the dough hook. Works very well for me, mind you though, my recipe is 3 eggs plus 1 yolk to 300 grams 00 flour. Never had a sticky issue. Again, thanks for the experiments.... so we don't have to. Really appreciate all the effort you put into this.
Great experiment! Nice to see you 😊
Very helpful.
How do you not have ASMR? You definitely have the voice for it I love listening to your videos
Found your video this week, perfect instruction, spasibo! nice to see someone explain with science rather than just "feel" which is impossible to recreate through the screen. Going to try the oliviye next, as my mum's instructions are impossible to recreate :-D
Your ratio worked great. And I actually like the softer dough for my ravioli. And having it a little sticky is great for making a good seal.
Bravo!!! Excellent demonstration and explanation. I wasn't aware of the difference between the c-hook and spiral hook for the mixers. I was wondering if they make a spiral hook for my regular stationary bowl kitchen-aid stand mixer?
Thank you! I’m unable to knead by hand so I gave up making many things that call for hand kneading. In my mind I could see the dough being shredded by the machine thus creating shorter fibers/strands and a much different end product. You gave me hope! I’ll be trying this.
What happens in the initial stage (bringing wet and dry together) doesn't matter. It's the second stage (kneading) that makes a difference (that's where shredding is not ok). Unfortunately, unless you have a mixer with a spiral hook, there is no way to get around hand kneading.
@@helenrennie I do have a spiral hook! I guess I just didn’t trust it.
I adore you ! Best secrets ,Greetings from Greece
It's possible that human hands soak up some of the water from in the dough, and perhaps even replace it with oil from the skin. Obviously a clean mixer attachment wouldn't do this. Fortunately I prefer hand-kneading; I find it therapeutic, almost addictive.
I run into this issue when making pizza dough at home. When I mix exclusively in a bowl to avoid dirtying the counters, the dough seems wetter. My working theory is that the act of kneading on the countertop encourages more evaporation by bringing more of the dough in contact with a wide open surface and also that my hands absorb some of the moisture too. These two things might be enough to make make the dough seem slightly drier. This is just speculation after making a lot of dough though, I've never run an actual test like this. Very interesting!
I love your channel
I love this follow up video, it's the kind of interest responsibility and intellectual curiosity that I am grateful to enjoy. I do have my two cents on the extra sticky machine dough result: Intuitively, I would expect that the hand kneading exposes more surface area and therefore exacerbates moisture loss due to evaporation. I feel that seems like a reasonable expatiation, and I guess it could only be addressed by an additional video with a mid process weigh-in. Probably not algorithmically advantageous though.
I always had a sense that doughs I make in the mixer always turn out feeling wetter than ones I make by hand with the same ratio. Glad to see I'm not crazy!
I feel like when you need by hand, especially on a wooden surface, the timber will absorb some of the liquid out of the dough, as well as your hands. When fully needing in the mixer as it’s made of stainless steel, none of that excess moisture can get absorbed into the surrounding material.
Wonderful and very detailed video as you always do, helping us home cooks to get consistent results!! Thank you !!
Do you have a recipe or suggestions to use with the Kitchenaid pasta press accessory (the one that makes spaghetti and fusilli)? The recipe that comes with the manual is not good at all…
Wood absorbs moisture, as does skin. Steel and plastic doesn't. Over 8min of constant rubbing onto wood - it's likely pulling more moisture out. Be interesting to see if you have a wet mix kneeding on a steel plate while wearing rubber gloves.
Seems like the moisture discrepancy would be due to a cutting board absorbing some moisture while kneading? Plastic is also somewhat porous so it can absorb some (explains why food processor was similar to hand). A good test could be stainless steel work surface vs stand mixer.
I think the difference for the last batch is the wooden board. Its surface absorbs some of the moisture leaving the dough of the first 3 batches a tiny bit dryer than the final one, that was only in metal bowl with a flat non absorbing surface.
by hand, you are actually applying more heat during kneading and evaporating moisture, where the mixer does not add the heat generally, except large batches and heat transfers from motor through hook. I always add a bit more flour as you suggested and solves the problem
The dough is noticeably warmer coming out of the mixer. I have very cold hands. Though I don't know if the temp has anything to do with it. I am just reporting what I've observed.
@@helenrennie either way, really enjoy your in depth videos on various food subject matters. Terrific video
Queen Helen 🙌🙌🙌
You can get a spiral dough hook for tilt head stand mixers. I did not know that my C-shaped attachment won't build gluten properly before watching this video. Thank you for letting me know! I don't know if this topic has been addressed in other comments, but I went online and found a perfect fit spiral dough hook for my 4.5 quart Kitchen Aid mixer. I will try it out for the first time tomorrow.
Hello, I had the same comment and also wonder if that means the same for bread dough? Was for spiral dough hook a kitchen aid brand please or did you find another brand that worked. Kind regards, Jayn
Spiral dough hooks are available for tilt head Kitchenaid mixers. They are not made by kitchenaid but by enlightened third parties who realized that the Kitchenaid hook for their tilt head mixers is just not that good. I just got one, ordered on Amazon, and it works great.
omg Helen I've missed you!
Thanks for this fun, informative video! There's one more method I've come to swear by. It's the laziest. I use my bread machine on the dough setting. It allows me to just dump the ingredients in, set and forget. Makes doubling the recipe a snap. As with the Kitchenaid doing the kneading it's a good idea to still hand-knead in the end, but honestly, sometimes I skip and it's fine. Depends on the shape I'm going to make.
Next week - варенники с вишней, пельмени, , can't wait, go Helen!!!
I heard you say that for the dough that was made 100% in the mixer that you only let the mixer knead it for six minutes but you kneaded the other doughs for eight minutes. Wouldn’t that make a difference?
Great side by side tests. I don't like the needing part of making pasta( I'm sure I'm using the wrong spelling of " needing". And yet using a rolling pin has always been wonderful. I can shut down my clutered thinking and just focus on rolling out the pasta. Very calming. Have a great day 🌤 😀.
It’s spelled kneading 😊I’m usually sore the next day after making pasta by hand
@@ExternusArmy hey thanks for the correct spelling. I knew it didn't look right but was to lazy to check for the correct spelling. 🙃👍
Wow nice 👌👌👌thanks for sharing stay connected 👍💖💖
Lesson learned from making Chinese noodles & dumpling wrappers: use cornstarch instead of flour or semolina in final stacking of pasta sheets and/or dusting after cutting & storing to prevent sticking. Unlike flour, starch will not absorb into the dough. Hope this helps! 😊
After the dough comes together while mixing, you should let it rest for autolyse to take effect. Then let the mixer continue mixing. This might solve your wet dough problem.
Hi there thanks sooooo much for this. I have been making pasta for 1:51 many years by hand. 1 cup of flour 1 Egg . Very hard work kneading . I saw your measurements and thought will try in processor. Wow beautiful soft dough and not so much kneading . But so soft had issues with strips stretching . And clumping in water. Ended up quite mushy . Usually mine is much stiffer and hard work. So i loved the way processor made dough like a cloud .however i will try 170 wet to 300 flour next time and go from there in my experiment may even have to go lower will see .i am useing 6 so quite thin .keep up great work definitely wont go back to hand tho
Thank you for that video. You may have solved my sourdough bread problems. They always come out of the mixer sticky, and don't like to hold shape the way I want them to. Will add some hand kneading to them and see how it goes.
How did it turn out?
Haha, this video comes out the very day I was going to try the whole process with a spiral hook I just bought. Great tip about adding more flour. I hope it turns out good, I'm not a fan of hand kneading.
Any results to share?
@@Cyrribrae Yes, my mixer combined the ingredients great, but it had trouble with the kneading process, as in I had to stop it after about 3-4 minutes because it started to emit and odor like it was struggling. I might have had it on the wrong speed? So I finished kneading by hand and the dough turned out great, and it was actually not sticky at all for me.
@@Andinus3000 cool thanks for the update!! A little bit of hand kneading is maybe ok.. But yea, hmm.
Hi Helen, could you please do a video explaining how different "all around" ingredients could influence the flavor profile of a dish?
For instance today I made some black truffle pasta with parmesan and butter, they came out really tasty, but I feel like they were lacking some brightness/a hint of freshness
you just need acidity. I have a ton of videos on this already. Here is one: ua-cam.com/video/nH-RnrV0vvc/v-deo.html but you might want to check out the whole Seasoning playlist. ua-cam.com/play/PLaaYCMq3l7jsMOgvsUQ2z4GmceUr_wjUv.html
I'd love to see what you did with all those leftover egg whites!
Could it be our skin absorbs some water from the dough during hand kneading? Maybe a way to test would be to wear gloves?
I have watched many videos using a stand mixer. The hook kneads the dough just fine. No one hand kneads more than one or two minutes. The dough from their stand mixer is not wet.
I encountered the same issue when I began using a mixer to knead bread - a stickier, slack dough. The dough will quickly become less sticky and more springy if you do a couple stretch and folds. I imagine the same would be true for pasta.
I imagine there is also more ambient drying when hand kneading. Therefore the kitchen aid kneading maintains the hydration, causing it to be stickier. So, perhaps you're right. Increasing the flour content just a bit would compensate for this phenomenon.
porous kneading board pulls out water from the dough during the hand kneading compared to the one done only in the bowl? 😉
hello helen i was wondering if you have an video about pasta made with eggs vs without eggs ? and what are the difference ?
is it better or not ?
You should check Chain Baker’s video on kneading. The over-heating and over-kneading theories seem unlikely.
I’ve always preferred food processor for pasta when I make any. I’m much more likely to make Asian noodles instead. Food processor is great for udon, which is extremely stiff and requires lots of kneading.
I am not big on food theories :) Know what happens is more helpful than why it happens. The problem is that when it comes to cooking, people often assume that something will happen without actually testing it and having evidence for it.
I'm sure just by looking at the method of folding and pushing the 100% mixer dough wasn't going to be "drier". I'm sure that perhaps pulling all of the dough off the hook making a ball and then lower the hook and knead for a longer time would "probably" come closer to the Hand Kneading (?) the goal of a Machine doing something is that YOU don't have to do the work, if it takes 12 minutes to get the dough you like, you didn't have to do the 8 minutes of hand kneading...while the mixer is going for 12-15 minutes you can be doing something else. I've always sped up my Mixer with the C Dough Hook and held on to it as it slapped the dough around the bowl for a couple minutes, pretty scary but that actually works to build the gluten needed for Bread/Pizza Dough and I'm sure it would work for Pasta Dough.
How much moisture gets absorbed by your wooden counter or hands?
Could it be that substituting water for egg protein makes for a wetter dough in the mixer?
I think it's because your hands are absorbing water from the dough and the bowl doesn't.
Maybe it's the surface against which the dough is pressed when kneading? You said yourself that after resting the last dough didn't behave that differently - maybe it's just how its surface feels right after being pressed against the metal bowl versus the wooden counter top? Just an idea!
I'm curious about making pasta dough and kneading using a bread maker. It's the hand-kneading that keeps me buying pasta from the store.
Can you tell me? Best way to dry a spiral bunch of noodles
I wanted to ask about air drying pasta for storage. I can’t see you mentioning it in any of your pasta videos. Just wondering if it is safe??
Bread machine on dough cycle works great.
Interesting choice to put the wet ingredients in the mixer first. That is the opposite of every other method.
Could it just be that your skin is soaking up some of the extra moisture?
It´s basically knead more... better pasta dough. One way of achieving this: Bring in the bigger guns. Kitchen Aid is nice. Kenwood Cooking Chef is... bigger. Try it. Put your Pasta dough in it and knead it with the spiral hook for ten minutes at as high a setting as you dare. Then give it a try. And let us know.:)
I would love a Kenwood mixer. Can you mail me one ;)
@@helenrennie That thing is awfully heavy and shipping it via mail from Germany would be probably more expensive than the machine itself. Besides: We use it quite a lot and wouldn´t want to miss it.:)
Seriously: I tried making pasta dough by hand twice over the years and wanted it to be to italian standards.
I succeeded (the dough was really elastic and tough and the pasta tasted like Italy) but it was more
a sports event than anything else.
None of the kitchen mixers I had were ever able to do it to italian standards. One Moulinex broke over it. (Like in half.)
I decided it wasn´t worth it and I would buy pasta instead.
Then the household council decided we didn´t need any more toys that break and that a household of engineers should have proper tools.
What can I say: The "mixer" (if you want to call it that) is nearly 19 kg without any tools attached. And the dough hook itself is 600 grams. No more parts breaking off. Just don´t get any fingers in it when its working.
I would like to know your opinion re. kneading with feet à la japonaise.
For some reason, I thought that you had to hand knead pasta-dough (now that I think about it, I guess it doesn't make much sense when you consider ready-made pasta). Perhaps because I have very vivid memories of my Hungarian grandma stubbornly kneading that pasta dough in the kitchen in order to make me my favorite food, even after she became very old and sick. I don't think she would have accepted a blender or a mixer even if you offered her one, she was very old school and stuck in her ways when it came to cooking and baking. That said, she was an excellent cook even long after she lost her sense of taste. It still amazes me how she could make such delicious perfectly-spiced food even when she couldn't taste it herself.
Anyway, will keep this experiment in mind for any future pasta-adventures!
I agree that for pasta dough hand kneading is best. My preference is to use a machine to bring the wet and dry together, like I show in the video (this does save some time with no impact to the final result), but I still knead for 8 min. Blender wouldn't work for the pasta dough at all (it's for liquids). A food processor works incredibly well, but again, that's not kneading -- just bringing the wet and dry together.
Thank you for this demonstration! I have a question, I have used olive oil in pasta dough with pretty good results and a non-sticky dough. Is there a reason why a little EVO is not used? I have never done a comparison with a pasta dough with a little EVO added and one with only eggs flour and salt. Have you? Would love your thoughts! Thank you.
Using some EVO is totally fine, you might just need to adjust the other ingredients slightly if you are using my recipe. I don't think the stickiness of your dough is determined by the oil as much as by the ratio of wet to dry and gluten development, but I haven't done any testing with oil.
I don't know if you have seen this but I'm interested in your take on using wonton wrappers. It's the first 2/3 of the vid and probably a few minutes into it. Seems legit to me and I would NEVER have thought of it. But that's the way of the best parents. Once you see it you shake your head and think "duh!" Or at least I do on a regular basis
Thanks Helen for all your hard work, learning a lot, please if I want to use spinach, should I substitute the eggs or water to obtain 185g?
Thanks again
I would replace the water and some egg, but keep most of the eggs in. Try 2 eggs, and spinach for the rest.
Ok thanks then will be 2 eggs + spinach=185g
And can I do less than 300g of flour, for example 100g, 200g, please how much wet ingredient will need?
Helen, can I use AP flour with some success?
some success, yes, but bread flour gives better texture.
My pasta is always the same. One must focus on when to open the box.
Maybe when you use the stand mixer all the way, the dough needs more kneading than 6 minutes.
Does bread flour produce a better pasta than using semolina flour or a half n half mixture each?
answered in the pinned comment (first one)
What about pasta machines?
That dangerous mixer versus hand that dangerous
Ratio 300/185 is for all purpose flour? Which is ratio for semolina rimacinata? Thanks a lot!
it's an egg dough. semolina is for water based dough: ua-cam.com/video/m04OrKjXsXM/v-deo.html egg doughs are best made with high protein 00 or bread flour
@@helenrennie Thanks and best regards.
I can't believe you missed the opportunity for ... dough-nado.
I would think it's the warming that the body gives in the development of gluten. But that just my small knowledge of science that makes this what I think. Makes me wonder if warming the bowl before and during the kneeling process that does this. Which also if that's not the whole reason "why" . I wonder if making the hook a little wider would help in the development of glutens 🤔🤨 I really do not know these things as fact , just theory.
To add up.. I have another method for dough. It's probably between hands and stand mixer. I think it actually mimics hands more.
Korean hashi. Same as Japanese but made with metals. You get the clumps as quickly as a mixer, no electronics, no extra clean up, quick.
I would really love to see a video where you, with all your experience, reacts and try unexpected methods.
Well, without more explanations, that makes no sense at all. I could say that my secret to making cookies is 'spoon' and you'd know more than I do about your dough method.
@@chezmoi42 Are..... we talking cuddles? I mean.. they did say the best cookies were made with love....
@@Cyrribrae Ooooh! Yummy!
But google 'Korean hashi' and tell me how it pertains to dough-making.
@@chezmoi42 I see what you’re saying because all I get is a bunch of listings for Korean metal chopsticks and I really have no idea how you would make a stiff dough with chopsticks 🥢🤔. Personally by the time I add up the time spent getting the food processor out setting it up and cleaning it I’m still ahead of the game just using a bowl in a bowl scraper.
@@chezmoi42 haha I'm not disagreeing. I just wanted to make the spooning joke. Ignore me.
So I guess the next test is to try a longer mixer-only knead?
Might be gluten formation over time?
20 eggs; yes, 20?? (I wonder if anyone will get the Adam Ragusea reference...)
Where is the video/recipe for your Eastern European Dumplings?
ua-cam.com/video/_7cSBz-XrGI/v-deo.html
@@helenrennie Thank you.
I have only ever made pasta dough by hand. However I do bread and pizza dough by hand. I used to use a Kitchenaid and hand knead afterward double work and mess so I do not use the Kitchenaid anymore unless it is a very high 95% hydration focaccia dough. I think while hand kneading the dough does lose water and is more firm. The dampness is removed by your hands and if you slap and fold dough as I do mostly with bread and pizza dough that aids evaporation.
mmmmm data
I think you'll make lasagna.
not convincing; the benefit of higher gluten comes with repeatedly folding the dough and passing it through the pasta roller as long as it takes to obtain proper elasticity.
In a couple of restaurants I worked in our pasta dough was made in the food processor and just brought together and rested overnight. No kneading. It was fairly shaggy when first mixed, but would be perfectly smooth once we started working with it the next day.
I don’t really knead dough after I put it in the food processor outside of just bringing it together for a minute or so.
For udon I knead maybe three minutes, but it’s the passing through the rollers repeatedly that really gets the dough to the right consistency.