Making Bread in Your Food Processor

I love doing extra-fast food processor yeast breads and rolls, and want to share with you some ideas for bread making from the Cuisinart’s newsletters. 

• You can make yeast dough in any full-size Cuisinart food processor.  In the compact models, you can knead dough for a 15” pizza crust.           
• Use the dough blade when following a recipe that calls for more than 3 ½ cups (17 ½ oz.) of all-purpose or bread flour.  The plastic blade thoroughly kneads yeast dough using over 3 ½ cups of flour.
• Use the metal blade when using a bread recipe that calls for less than 3 ½ cups of flour.      

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  Weighed flour with salt, sugar, yeast and butter added

• The standard ratio of flour to water is 1 cup flour to 1/3 cup water in a basic white bread recipe.  Adding eggs or other liquids alters that ratio.       
• When I measure in my dry ingredients on top of my weighed flour, I space them around the top of the processor, so I can keep track of how many measuring spoonful’s I’ve added.  For consistently good results, weigh the flour.  Also, weighing flour is faster than using the “scoop and sweep” method.  
• If you use dry measuring cups for flour, for these recipes, stir the flour first to aerate it.  Scoop up a heaping cupful and sweep across the top with a knife to level the flour.
• If recipes are written for the “scoop and sweep method”, they give these weight comparisons.

• Per Cup	Weight
  All-purpose flour	5 ounces
  Bread flour	5 ounces
  Whole wheat flour	4 ounces
  Rye, light	3 ½ ounces
  Rye, medium	3 ounces
  Rye, dark	4 ½ ounces

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  Dough cleaning the sides of the workbowl

• The processor mixes and kneads your dough so fast that a stopwatch is useful to get your timing right.  When we’re talking seconds – it works better than a timer.
• Use an instant read thermometer to check the temperature of the liquids you add to your yeast dough.
• When adding liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients in the work bowl, add them while the machine is running, in a slow, steady stream, only as fast as the flour absorbs it.
• How do you know if you have the right balance of flour to water?  The dough will mass into a ball and virtually clean the sides of the work bowl.  When this happens, the dough is not too dry or too wet.

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  Risen dough ready to shape

• Typical bread dough, when properly kneaded, should have a soft, pliable texture.  If it feels tough, process until it is properly kneaded, about 30 seconds longer.
• I let it dough rise right in the covered work bowl to save time and cleanup.  After the first rise, shape the dough as you wish.
• Check the book that came with your food processor to see if your machine is large enough for your recipe.  The recipes we will be giving are for a standard or Classic size processor, and will work fine in a larger one too.
• If you don't have a food processor, all of the bread or roll recipes next week can be made on the dough cycle of a bread machine and then shaped for the last rise, or in your stand mixer or by hand, for that matter.   I have made them by all of those methods, depending on the equipment I have had access to.
• My personal favorite for a bread food processor is the plain Jane 14 cup Cuisinart; I have gone back to one after trying the more deluxe model that just didn't cut it for me.
• I'm a firm believer that the best bread is made in a kitchen where bread is made often - where a little natural yeast spores are in the air from regular bread making.  These food-processor breads are so quick and easy you'll wonder why you would ever buy bread. 
• Try some of our recipes for yeast bread and rolls made in the food processor here.