Sometimes when I am mixing bread dough in a stand mixer, the bread dough separates into two or more lumps. Today, for example, I was making brioche, I mixed in the cold water and eggs into the flour mixture and I get two separate lumps of dough. Kneading was impossible since one lump of dough stuck to the hook and the other lump kept getting pushed up, out of the mixer bowl. I tried to remedy this situation by kneading them by hand for a while before tossing it back into the mixer, sometimes this work, today it didn’t. What did I do wrong?

Hmmm, I’m stumped.  This happened before you added the butter, right?  Is is Rose’s recipe?  I ask because hers is a fairly wet dough, so it’s very sticky and possibly less likely to do that.

Julie - 25 August 2010 01:05 PM

This happened before you added the butter, right?

Yes.

Is is Rose’s recipe?

No. It’s ATK. But, it’s not just this recipe, I’ve had the same problem with other recipes as well. I saw Rose’s brioche recipe and I thought it was too complicated for an amateur like me. I know complicated method sometimes pays well, but I think a complicated method has a higher chance of failure and I am failure-phobic. I don’t know exactly what is wrong, but I have made this before and it was successful (twice!). As I said, this is a “sometimes” thing.

I’ve found if I lower the mixer speed it helps the dough re-unite.  I’ve had it happen some of the time as well.  Could always hand knead at the end as well.