Our BlendTec (formerly K-Tec) mixer arrived 2 days ago. Model: Mix & Blend II. We had a good time unpacking it and exploring it. Having seen the BlendTec “Will It Blend?” videos on YouTube, Ben (9) really really really wants to “make snow.”
Very first impressions
Upon unpacking and exploring, here’s what we observed.
- Very small countertop footprint.
- Blender is 1-quart whereas my Vita-Mix is 2-quart. Downside? Not sure. Upside? The blender fits on the base even when slid to the back of the countertop.
- It comes with very little documentation and instructions. But very little. I’m documentation hound and was left a little shorted on that end.
- It comes with a very brief instructional DVD. No, more like an overview DVD. Again, very few instructions for the “hound,” but still a decent overview. Biggest weakness? No top-down camera when filming the mixer at work. Bosch even has such a video (top camera) on YouTube showing it at work. Strength? Each segment is really short. And they chose presenters who aren’t so overpoweringly “infomercial” so that you can bear to watch them.
First-use impressions
Today, Wendy used the mixer to make her butterflake rolls. Wendy usually quadruples her recipe, which barely fits in her biggest mixing bowl, and gets it mixed just enough to pour onto the table where she generously adds the rest of the flour and kneads just enough to incorporate it. Then she rolls it out, brushes on the butter, folds it over, and cuts the rolls. Her impressions after doing this with the K-Tec:
- She could only double the recipe, but that’s OK. That’s still a generous mixer in her opinion.
- It mixes the dough GREAT!
- When you’re used to judging dough hydration and readiness by hand, it’s really hard to figure out when you’ve added enough flour to the mixer. The first batches were much wetter than usual, but very nicely mixed and kneaded. She hand kneaded these to add some more flour and loved how the dough felt. On the 4th batch, she was getting the hang of hydration, and it was nearly right when she took it out of the mixer. We think that’s just a learning curve and we’ll be satisfied.
Tonight, I made the 100% Whole Wheat Sourdough Sandwich Bread that Mike Avery includes in his eBook and on his web site, www.sourdoughhome.com. Believe it or not, when I’ve made that bread before, it’s crumb is strong enough that you can spread peanut butter over it. It really is a sandwich bread! I adjusted the recipe because I don’t have time to bake it mid-week, so I’m doing it long-rise style. I used the 1 cup starter that it calls for, then quadrupled the rest of the 1-loaf recipe. It should do its first rise overnight (12-14 hours), then I’ll put it in loaf pans in the morning before work, and Wendy will bake it after it’s next rise, probably mid-day. My impressions of doing this with the mixer:
- It was easy to handle the larger volume of dough.
- The mixer did fine with the heavier wheat bread dough, even as I tried to make it dry enough for my taste. (K-Tec claims to use 15% less flour and instructions tend to prefer wetter dough. Since I tend toward artisan bread, I need dryer dough.)
- The dough was indeed stickier after the 2.5 minutes of auto-kneading, but it passed the desired “window pane test,” which surprised me. OK, it could probably have used another 30 seconds or a minute of kneading; I’ll play with those variations in future. I’ll judge the resulting bread before adjusting.
I suspect that K-Tec’s preference for wetter dough is a good thing, all in all. Wetter is better in general. It’s just that I am working to master artisan style bread, and baking without a pan requires a stiffer (dryer) dough. I’m thinking K-Tec will handle that fine. Still have to test it.
Grinding Grain
The Mix & Blend II blender does not grind grain to as fine a flour as the Vita-Mix, but after a couple of cycles, it may be OK. I did one batch of grain in it, then 3 more batches in the Vita-Mix. (BlendTec is up front that better flour is made using its separate Grain Mill appliance.) While it says you can grind grain in the blender, there were absolutely no instructions provided about quantity, time, etc. That was disappointing.
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