problem with dough in Zo

15 years ago

My first dough-only venture was with an old favorite recipe from Bernard Clayton's The Breads of France. It has an overnight starter that's not very liquid. To make the dough you add a little more liquid and more dry ingredients, taking care to keep the dough fairly wet.

The Zo is supposed to be very good with wet doughs, so I weighed the dough and put half into the machine on the dough-only cycle. Then I kneaded the other half by hand, keeping track of the little bit of extra flour I used and adding the same to the machine.

It ended up being more trouble than making it by hand, because the dough became horribly stuck to the non-stick pan. (Remember this is the dough-only cycle, no baking.) DH described it as a death-grip on the non-stick surface.

Any ideas? The bread will be fine, but I'd like to now what the Zo requires. Does it have to have watery liquid? But eventually it's kneading dough, even if it starts with water in the bottom. So what was different?

Does

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Comments (4)

grainlady_ks
15 years ago
Could you be a little more specific? Please list amount of ingredients you added to the bread pan and settings you used on the Zo. At least to me, it's not exactly clear what you did, and why you did it.

I regularly use an overnight sponge with the Zo, but the part about "I weighed the dough and put half into the machine on the dough-only cycle. Then I kneaded the other half by hand, keeping track of the little bit of extra flour I used and adding the same to the machine" has me a bit stumped.

Thanks,
-Grainlady
cloudy_christine
Original Author
15 years ago
The whole recipe was too much. I weighed it to make sure I had equal amounts, and also kept track of any additions for the same reason. In other words, it was a controlled experiment. The control dough was kneaded by hand, so I knew the hydration was what it should be.
The setting was the Basic Dough setting, with preheat turned off.
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annie1992
15 years ago
OK, CC, as I understand it, you mixed the dough completely, then kneaded half by hand and put the other half of the prepared dough in the machine to knead?

I've never used it to knead prepared dough, if I'm going to do that much of it, I might as well knead it, other than the pain factor from the carpal tunnel. I only start from scratch with the Zo, and so I have no experience with already prepared dough, sorry.

I use whatever recipe suits me, liquid on the bottom, dry on the top, push the dough button and walk away until it has mixed, kneaded, risen and knocked the dough down. Then I take it out, shape it, rise it and bake it.

I have had some very sticky doughs in the Zo, though, some sticky enough that shaping loaves was a challenge, but they've always come out, except for the stuff that sticks on the paddles which I sometimes have to wash under running water. and, for some reason, occasionally I find, when I check the kneading, that the machine didn't mix all the ingredients together, so I stir them all in with a silicone spatula and then let the machine knead. That's only happened a couple of times in all these years, but it has happened.

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cloudy_christine
Original Author
15 years ago
Right, Annie. I did it that way because the starter was already pretty much a dough, so stirring in the other stuff seemed as easy as putting it into the machine first.
So maybe this recipe just isn't suited to the Zo. But you do see a lot of stuff about how good it is with sticky doughs.
I had no trouble shaping this dough.

problem with dough in Zo

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grainlady_ks

cloudy_christine
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problem with dough in Zo

Comments (4)

grainlady_ks

cloudy_christineOriginal Author

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annie1992

cloudy_christineOriginal Author

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cloudy_christine
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