Bread – How to Attach Dough Attachment to Dretec Handmixer?

If you do most of the kneading while the dough is very wet (like Jeff Varasano recommends for his pizza dough here http://www.varasanos.com/PizzaRecipe.htm), you should be able to do most of it with even a comparatively weak hand mixer and not have too much trouble holding it steady enough (see link - gluten IS working even though the dough is still only slightly more dry than a batter).

That said, if you try to work with a drier dough, even if your motor can handle it (which it likely can't), it will probably be more difficult to hold the mixer than to just knead the dough by hand.

I mix dough in my kitchenAide all the time, and this happens all the time, so through the process I check the consistency and dryness and I've developed a feel for the "just right formula", but being ADHD I don't go in with precise measurements each time, but that would be a good idea once perfection is found. So anywho, I take a strong spatula from time to time and cut it of the hook, to give it a nice restart with hook on outside of dough ball. but your dough needs to be dry enough that it is cleaning itself off the bowl and it will the hook too. It's designed to find that perfect balance so that it starts wet and sticky and then as the gluten starts to web it becomes self cleaning, and the kneading is drying it a little or maybe the material is absorbing the liquid, either way it goes from dry to wet. Another thing I do if the hook is wrapped in dough instead of working against the sides, I briefly turn up the speed and that will throw the dough to the sides and sometimes clean it.