Friday, April 29, 2011

Always have a backup plan....


I have a love/hate relationship with my Bosch Universal Mixer.  I love it when it works and I hate it when it pulls my chain.  Lately, my Bosch has been getting a little dodgy.  It started by being difficult when I wanted to remove the bowl from the power base.  Then, it began not always turning the dough hook when I turned on the power.  The other day, in the middle of a double batch of peppermint patty dough, it failed to work at all.  Enough is enough!  This evening, when it was time to put a sponge on for pizza dough, Maid Elizabeth and I opted to bring out the hand crank dough mixer.  We put all of the ingredients in the bucket to sponge as usual and then added our flour and began to crank.  It worked like a charm!  The only issue we had is that our non-electric kneader is huge (10 quart capacity) and we were just making a little pizza dough.  It kneaded the dough very nicely, we just had to do the final kneading by hand.

Putting the dough hook in the bucket
Put the lid on the bucket for sponging
and raising
Kneading the dough
We had so little dough that it was
hard to mix it all in together
Maid Elizabeth finished kneading by hand
The prepper's code dictates that you always have three ways to do anything.  Mixing bread dough in no exception.  We have the Bosch, the hand crank mixer and our very own two hands.  Come what may, we will always find a way to make fresh, wonderful bread!

Bread making directions on the top....
and the bottom of the lid
Lehman's Non-Electric used to carry a version of this hand crank mixer.  I looked at their website and they don't seem to carry one any longer.  We bought ours in an antique store, and I have seen them at flea markets, yard sales and on ebay.  Ours has been a pretty handy investment.

What was left of our Friday night pizza
Once again, the prepper's code is more than a motto, it is a way of life.

6 comments:

  1. That hand mixer looks like something I'd enjoy having. I'm going to watch for one on ebay.

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  2. Good Morning Enola.
    I too, use a Bosch for my bread doughs and for most of my heavier mixing.

    Bosch makes a special hand crank "turning handle" as an accessory, that allows you to manually mix, or finish your batches in the event of a power down situation.

    Here is the item example.

    http://www.marmeesbreadmarket.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=9&products_id=19


    notutopia

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  3. I love my Bosch and will look into the hand crank option. Also, I bought my Bosch from Pleasant Hill Grains and have had such a great response from them whenever anything has happened to an accessory or even the bowl. If you have any questions about how your Bosch could be fixed again, they are on the web. No, I am not affiliated with them in any way. I bought my Bosch in May of 2007 and they have great customer service.

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  4. What would one expect to pay for a hand crank mixer? Just a rough estimate, I am trying to get some items together (food mill, coffee grinder, etc) and would like to have a budget for some of these items. My friends help me out too by looking at the antique/thrift stores when they are out and about.

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  5. The manual dough mixer is very cool. A smaller one would be very good to have, I'll look around now that I know what to look for.

    The pizza - scrumptuous. It's going to be pizza tonight for this house.

    NoCal Gal

    ReplyDelete
  6. Nice blog.
    Gorgeous blog. I liked it.
    its excellent

    Pizza Equipment

    ReplyDelete