Forced to Bake in the Heat

 I'm not sure if I'm just becoming more intolerant of the heat, but for some reason, this summer has felt like a real scorcher!(I understand that the word "hot" is a relative term. I don't want to hear any comments from my Phoenix, AZ family. You live in an inferno that makes everywhere else feel like Antarctica.)

One of my daily indulgences is usually grinding wheat and making a loaf of fresh bread every morning. But this summer, heating up the kitchen is the last thing on my mind! Consequently, we've gone a few weeks without fresh bread. My kids have been whining about having to eat store-bought bread, so I finally broke down and made some.

This time, I didn't make my usual daily loaf.  Instead, I made a giant batch of dough so I could mass produce it and bake it all at once, thus only heating the house up for a mere 35 minutes.  I decided to bag it, and freeze most of it.  Then I'll just thaw it out one loaf at a time as we need it.

When the weather cools down, I'll go back to my regular routine.  For now, I'm all about efficiency.

 Here's my dilemma. I love my Kitchen-Aid mixer, but it only has the capacity to knead enough dough for two loaves of bread at a time. When I make a large batch of bread, I have to mix the dough in a giant bowl. Then I either have to hand- knead it (time consuming) or knead 1/2 of the dough at a time with the mixer.

This is the part where YOU, my dear readers, come into play:

I've been considering  the purchase of a Bosch mixer for quite some time now because my understanding is that they can mix large batches of bread dough very efficiently.  Is this true? Does anyone  have experience with a Bosch, and/or any other type of mixer? Are you satisfied with the results? I would appreciate any insight you can give to me.

(Mmmmmm, I can almost smell the bread from this picture.)


Thanks for the info,

Nell