Yay for a new Universal. You're gonna love it. I'm assuming you're using a recipe so I'll just tell you how I make my bread in the Universal.

I put all the yeast, the sugar, and the oil, (olive oil 4me) into the bowl first.

Then I put all of my heated water in and about 1/4 or less of the total flour amount you'll be using. Let it mix about 30 secs, it'll look like pancake batter.

While its sitting I'm stirring the salt into the balance of the flour plus any other ingredients like grains, flax meal etc. As soon as I've added all the extra's like salt, etc.. I dump that into the bowl put the ring on. I never use the center lid part. And I let it knead for a minimum of 11 minutes.

When it's finished kneading after those 11 minutes or so. I remove the bowl from the machine, take out the dough hook and let the dough rise right in the Bosch bowl. I usually have it rising in the microwave oven which I've preheated by boiling a cup of water in it.. Keeps the interior most as well. Of course you can let yours rise anywhere.. I Just happen to like using the microwave LOL

Let the dough rise about 35-40 minutes, never let it double in size.. that's a mistake.

Remove from the bowl, shape and put in loaf pans to rise again and bake.. that's it..

There is no second rising in the bowl..it's not necessary because the Bosch does such a thorough job kneading in the first place it doesn't need it.

Lemme know how it goes.

A word of caution: It's better to err on the side of having to add more flour to a wet dough in the machine while it's kneading, than having to add water to a dough that's too dry kneading in the machine,, trust me I learned this. LOL

Thanks. I will follow your instructions. I am looking forward to learning to use the Bosch.

Linda

BTW did you get the cookie paddles? You'll definitey want those if you're going to be making any heavy cookie dough like chocolate chip.

Hopefully all goes well on your first try. I know I had to sort of fool around a few times when I first got mine. That's the reason I never use the center lid. Just in case the dough is too wet and crawling up the center post I can stand there and sprinkle some flour over the center using teaspoon.

I did get the cookie paddles. I made chocolate chip cookies this afternoon with them. The bread turned out great. I just love this machine. There is one potential problem I am discovering with it though--probable weight gain. LOL
Thanks for the tips.
Linda

Glad it turned out well for you.
I timed myself once last year making chocolate chip cookes from start(gathering ingredients) to finish (eating cookies) and it was 19 minutes.

You know you may find in your experimenting that you can forgo the step of mixing a little flour and the water/yest/sugar/oil step and letting it sit and just do it all at once. There's no hard and fast rules. The only thing I avoid is adding the salt into the liquid that contains the yeast. You may even find you don't have to stir the salt into the flour just sprinkle it over the flour, that sort of thing.

I also like to keep a box or bag of wheat gluten handy for if you're making white bread etc and want that chewy "wonder bread" texture. Or if you're short on bread flour, wheat gluten turns all purpose flour into bread flour.

My 'must haves' are SAF Instant Yeast and fresh milled whole wheat flour (Montana Hard White), and I love to add in sunflower seeds, walnuts, cracked grain cereals, dried fruit...whatever suits the mood and current need.

With the SAF yeast, like pkguy says, I don't proof the yeast first. I add everything at once, except for salt and about 3/4 of the flour, mix, then let rest for 25 minutes, then add the salt and the remaining flour (gradually, of course), and let the machine knead it. Then I shape it and let it rise only once. Works great.

Have fun!