Making dough from scratch is easy using a stand mixer.
If you’ve never made dough before it can be daunting just thinking about it.
But creating these new items in your own home kitchen is one of the most rewarding foods you can make.
Kneading dough by hand can be a very difficult process. It involves putting plenty of flour on your counter-top and using the base of your hand to push the dough away from you. Then rolling it back towards you into a ball and pushing it into the counter again repeatedly.
You managed to get flour all over the counter-top and your arms are exhausted at the end of just seven minutes of kneading!
By using a stand mixer to make your dough it will start by being tacky when it comes away from the sides of the bowl. After a few minutes mixing, the dough will come away from the sides of the bowl easily, making it smooth to touch. When you take the dough out of the bowl, it will be easy to form a uniform ball with your hands.
What qualities do you need in a stand mixer for making dough?
- Large capacity
- Durable motor
- Dough hook attachment
- Slow speed capability
Pizza Dough
Pizza dough can be a messy process to make by hand.
It involves kneading it for a long time to develop the gluten so it can be stretched and molded into a round shape.
Using a stand-mixer for only a couple of minutes to knead the dough for you makes pizza dough an easy go-to for a weeknight dinner idea.
How to use a stand mixer to create pizza and bread dough
- Place yeast, sugar and warm water in a separate bowl and let sit for 10 min.
- Put yeast mixture into your stand mixer’s bowl once bloomed.
- Add salt, oil, and flour one cup at a time and mix on the lowest speed until all the flour is added.
- Mix on low speed until the dough is kneaded and comes away from the bowl without being tacky. Dough should feel smooth, easily touched without having excess on your fingers.
- Remove the dough hook and form dough into a ball.
- Let rise for 1.5-2 hours.
- Punch down dough.
- Dough is ready to be formed and baked, or let rise again and then bake (depending on your recipe).
Using a stand mixer to create pizza and pasta dough takes all of the arm strength needed from manually kneading dough right out of the picture.
Pasta Dough
Pasta dough is one of the toughest dough’s to make by hand.
Using only 00 flour and eggs, the stand-mixer evenly mixes the two ingredients together and creates a ball of dough ready for you to rest and roll out in only a few minutes of mixing.
It’s very difficult to mix pasta dough by hand, I would not recommend trying this without a heavy-duty stand mixer.
Bread Dough
Types of bread dough to use in your stand mixer:
- Rolls
- Buns
- Bread Sticks
- Loaves
Here is an easy to follow beginner recipe that I quite enjoy for sandwich bread. If you would rather use a bread maker instead, here is our recommendation for our favorite bread maker.
Depending on the type of bread you are making, you need to be careful not to over-mix.
Breads that are dainty and light for example lemon-loaf, pumpkin-loaf, etc. these need to be mixed until only just combined. Do not over-mix. This will make the loaf very chewy and difficult to eat.
Larger dough’s like baking cinnamon buns or dinner rolls are easy to make in a bigger capacity stand-mixer.
Add one cup of flour at a time on low speed, slowly incorporating the ingredients together. By using a larger bowl you’ll be sure to keep all of the ingredients in your recipe instead of on your counter.
KitchenAid creates very heavy duty stand mixers.
As soon as you take a KitchenAid stand mixer out of the box you can feel how heavy it really is. KitchenAid stand mixers come with a sturdy metal dough hook. The motors in these stand mixers are very powerful and can make up to 3 loaves of bread in a single batch.
The best stand mixer for bread dough, pizza dough, and pasta dough at home is the KitchenAid Professional Series 6 Qt.
- Planetary mixing
- Large capacity
- Slow speed capability
- Heavy-duty motor for mixing
Kneading bread dough has never been easier.
The KitchenAid Professional Stand Mixer will be able to reach the very bottom of your mixing bowl, making sure it mixes all of your ingredients together. KitchenAid is a timeless brand that knows what bakers need, and they deliver that with each stand mixer that they make.
KitchenAid stand mixers evenly distribute ingredients, and develop the gluten while kneading the dough. It adds air into the dough, creating air pockets in your bread.
Your bread will be light, fresh, and bounce back when you touch it.
The smell of freshly baked bread will fill your home and you’ll never imagine purchasing bread from the grocery store again.
