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+#### Mixing and Dough Development
+
+This is the part of baking that is intimidating to many new bakers,
+and it doesn't need to be. Please take a few minutes to read this
+section and begin to learn what the dough should feel like and how to
+get it feeling like it is well developed. Many of us started baking by
+using a bread machine or a Kitchen Aid stand mixer to mix and knead
+the dough. While this works reasonably well, and other methods are
+described below, you will learn more quickly how the dough should feel
+in the different stages of development if you use the tools god gives
+us, our hands. For thousands of years humans have made good bread
+using only a crude bowl and their hands as tools. While commercial
+bakeries don't have the time to hand mix and shape thousands of loaves
+daily, much of what is wrong with commercial bread starts here in the
+first phase of bread making.
+
+**Mixing:** Start by gathering all of the needed ingredients for the
+recipe. If you are making a basic French style bread that uses
+just the basic four ingredients (flour, water, salt and yeast),
+measure or better, weigh each item carefully ahead of time and
+have it in front of you ready to use. This might seem like over
+simplifying this procedure but I can tell you from experience you
+will forget the salt or pour all the water in without having
+measured it or can't remember some additional ingredient, if you
+don't get organized, first.
+
+In a large bowl, add all of the dry ingredients first and stir or mix
+them together well. This means that Instant Dry Yeast and salt are
+added to the flour and any other dry ingredients you may be using with
+your recipe.
+
+If you are using Active Dry Yeast, the directions for re activating
+this type of yeast call for adding the yeast to a cup or so of the
+water (warmed) needed for the recipe  5 or 10 minutes ahead of mixing
+the dough. If you are using Cake Yeast, crumble it with and into the
+flour using your fingers. 
+
+Continuing; Next, add all of the water and begin combining the flour
+into the water. You can use your fingers, (yes it will be a mess but
+it is supposed to be) or a spoon to accomplish this first mixing.
+Wood, Stainless Steel, Plastic, any kind of spoon or bowl will do
+fine. When the mixture is mostly a shaggy mass and looks like most of
+the dry flour is combined into the mass, you can stop, clean your
+hands over the bowl and cover the bowl with a plastic bag or a damp
+towel or plastic wrap. Plastic grocery bags are my favorite. Wait at
+least 15 minutes and as long as an hour for the flour to absorb the
+water. When you come back to the mix, it won't feel anything like it
+did after first mixing. Scrape everything you can onto a clean counter
+and quickly clean and dry the mixing bowl.
+
+**Kneading or Developing:** This is the fun part of bread making.
+You are starting with a mixture of flour, water, salt and yeast.
+At the moment it is just those things put together in a bowl. We
+need to develop these things into something more, a smooth dough.
+The best way to show you or tell you how to accomplish this is
+with a video. There are many video clips that show similar
+techniques but this one I like the best.  Richard Bertinet has
+produced an excellent video with Gourmet Magazine that shows the
+mixing technique above, and the slap and fold kneading technique
+that many of us now use in some form or another. I urge you to
+watch this video and learn to do this maneuver with the dough. As
+you will see in the video, the dough gradually comes together and
+becomes smooth and flexible. Bertinet is making a sweet dough
+with eggs and sugar but the method works on any kind of dough or
+bread type. Finish by rounding and putting tension on the outer
+skin of the dough and forming a ball.
+
+Once the dough is well developed, smooth and rounded, lightly oil
+the now clean mixing bowl with a few drops of oil on your fingers
+(or lightly spray regular cooking oil into the bowl) and place
+the dough into the bowl, seams down and roll the ball around to
+coat all the surfaces. Cover the bowl as before during what is
+called the Primary Ferment.  During the primary ferment, the
+dough will expand in volume as the yeast begins to eat the sugars
+in the flour and create Carbon Dioxide. Your well developed dough
+will trap those CO2 bubbles and form pockets that will become the
+air pockets in the bread, making it lighter.
+
+NOTE: For Whole Grain and Multi-Grain breads, It is advisable to
+not try and develop the dough entirely by kneading. The sharper
+grains will cut the gluten strands and allow the CO2 gas to
+escape. A Stretch and Fold will often work as well, done during
+the primary ferment. A link to this procedure is provided below.
+
+You can always come back to using some appliance to mix and knead
+your dough. In fact some doughs are somewhat better suited to
+machine mixing, but not many. You can easily produce wonderful
+bread in the manner of our ancestors.
+
+Once the dough has doubled in volume you are ready for the next
+step, shaping.
+
+There are a number of ways to develop dough.  The easiest is
+probably to put it in a KitchenAid-type mixer. About 8 to 10
+minutes of mixing the ingredients in a KitchenAid on low speed
+will generally do the trick.
+
+There's no need to buy a KitchenAid, though, to make good bread.
+Here are three ways of developing dough by hand.
+
+**Traditional Kneading:** Use this method when the dough will rise
+fairly quickly (1-2 hours for the first rise) or if I’m in a
+hurry to get it developed.
+
+First, mix the ingredients with a spoon until everything is hydrated.
+Cover and wait about 15 to 20 minutes – this way, you’ll let the water
+do most of your work for you (if you don’t have time for this step,
+feel free to skip it – you may have knead just a little more,
+though). After this waiting period is done, scrape the dough
+out of the bowl onto a smooth surface, and push on the down
+and forward with the heels of your hands. Fold it up back on
+itself, give the dough a quarter turn, and repeat.
+
+Knead for about 4-5 minutes, and then cover it. Let it rest about
+5 minutes, and then knead once again for 1-2 minutes. It should
+be well developed at this point.
+
+One way to test dough development is to tear off a small chunk
+and then gently stretch it. If the dough is ready, you should be
+able to stretch it thin enough so that it becomes translucent.
+This is called the “windowpane” test.
+
+**Stretch and Fold:** This method adds about an hour to the rise of
+an ordinary yeasted loaf, but when you’re working with sourdoughs
+or yeasted breads that have a long rise anyway, it doesn’t make
+that much difference. And it takes hardly active time at all –
+just a few minutes total.  Really!
+
+Mix the ingredients with a spoon until hydrated. Cover and wait
+30 minutes to 1 hour. After this rest, scrape the dough out of
+the bowl and stretch it to about twice its length, if possible.
+For the first fold, the dough will still be pretty shaggy, so
+only go as far as you can without ripping. Fold the dough like a
+letter, give it a quarter turn, and then stretch and fold once
+again.  Place it back in the bowl and cover.
+
+Repeat this folding process twice more with 20-30 minutes in
+between each one.
+
+More information and a video may be found here:
+<http://www.sourdoughhome.com/stretchandfold.html>
+
+**Stretching and Folding Illustrated:** Here is the Stretch and Fold
+method illustrated by Mebake (Khalid). He has artfully depicted
+the process of keeping the dough in the bowl while developing the
+gluten and incorporating air into the dough. This easy to do
+technique is employed by many members here and allows the baker
+the opportunity to develop the gluten in a bowl during
+fermentation with little effort and no mess. Once you understand
+how this works, I'm sure you will use it every time.
+
+**French fold:** This is a great, quick method for developing dough,
+but it requires a relatively long rest after everything is
+hydrated, so it's most appropriate for doughs with a long bulk
+rise.
+
+Once everything is hydrated, cover and let the dough rest for a
+least an hour.  Remove the dough from the bowl onto a smooth
+surface.  With one hand on either side of the dough and your
+thumbs underneath, stretch the dough parallel to your body while
+simultaneously folding it in half along its length with your
+thumbs.
+
+Give the dough a quarter turn, pick it up, and then throw it down
+onto the surface, smooth side down.  Really, smack it down.
+Stretch it again while simultaneously folding it over with your
+thumbs, make another quarter turn, and give it yet another smack
+with the smooth side down.
+
+Do this about 10 times, and you’ll have a well developed dough.
+If it doesn't seem as developed as you'd like or if it starts to
+tear, let it rest for 5 minutes, and repeat.
+
+A good video of this technique may be found here: 
+<http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/video/2008/03/bertinet_sweetdough>
+
+**An alternative method:** that keeps the dough in the bowl and all of the
+kneading is done there.
+
+I use my fingers and scrape the dough into a single lump and flatten
+it and then fold it in half, turn it a quarter turn and fold again and
+flatten it.  I continue this for about twenty folds.  Often it gets
+very stiff and needs to rest for a few minutes to relax.  As noted the
+dough will let you know when you have done enough.  This stretches the
+original surface a million times the size it was at the start and
+assures a complete blending of the ingredients.  I use this method
+because it confines the mess and permits making bread in less than
+ideal places.  See the illustration mentioned above for a pictorial
+that describes this process.
+
+There is no wrong way to knead bread but some ways are much
+better than others.  Some breads benefit from special kneading
+and handling and some are very hard to get wrong.  Before
+kitchens and mechanical mixers and tables there were dough
+troughs and all of the mixing and kneading was done there.
+You could make bread in a dough trough and bake it on a hot
+flat stone on an open fire.
+
+**No knead bread:** For bread mixes that use very little leavening
+and are fairly wet, time provides the development.  Simply mix
+everything up until hydrated, cover and go to sleep.  Anywhere
+from 12 to 18 hours later, give the dough one stretch and
+fold, shape as necessary, and then let it rise a couple of
+hours until it’s ready to bake.  Learning to use a plastic
+scraper to handle dough in the mixing bowl, as described
+below, is a big help.
+
+**Alternative video:** If you are just a little adventurous, Check
+out this excellent video
+(<http://www.thebackhomebakery.com/Tutorials/NoKnead.html>), provided
+by Mark Sinclair of The Back Home Bakery.  Mark demonstrates folding
+in the bowl using a plastic scraper over a period of time to develop
+strength in the dough.  This and all of Marks videos are excellent
+training aids.