Cooking & Baking

Should You Knead Dough by Hand or in a Mixer?
These two methods are the most popular ways to knead dough. (We’ll show each technique in detail below). Kneading dough by hand can be messy, and many home cooks add a lot of extra flour, which can compromise the texture of the baked loaf.

So while hand kneading can be a gratifying process, we recommend using a stand mixer with the dough hook attachment for this task. A dough hook is the best tool you can use to knead dough. It does everything your hands would do, but more quickly. Not only does a stand mixer and dough hook do all the work—but you’re more likely to get better results if you use them instead.

How Long Does It Take to Knead Dough?
On a practical level, it takes up to 25 minutes—and some well-developed forearm muscles—to knead dough by hand, and just about 8 minutes to knead in the stand mixer with the dough hook. However, if you do not own a stand mixer, you can still mix dough by hand and make a good loaf of bread from most doughs. Either way, both methods are simple, as long as you do them right. The trick for kneading by hand is to use a rhythmic, gentle motion that stretches and massages the dough.

Update, April 2025:
We recently tested a few additional stand mixers. The NutriMill Artiste Stand Mixer, which did a great job with everything from cake batter to pizza dough, is our new favorite lighter-weight stand mixer. Our overall winner remains the Ankarsrum Assistent Original 7 Liter Stand Mixer. Our best mid-priced stand mixer is the KitchenAid Classic Series 4.5 Quart Tilt-Head Stand Mixer.