I'm taking early retirement, and will be doing much more from scratch

Less money, more time. More canning and freezing.

Looking for a good price on a 4.5 qt KitchenAid for bread. The organic loaves are more than $4 these days. Will probably also get an attachment for pasta, as that always seemed to me to be hard to screw up.

One thing I've never been able to do is to make good pastry crust. Turnovers and pot pies are really great for leftovers, and up until now if I've ever had a need for crust, I bought it ready made. Any tips?

early retirement.

Sorry, no tips for your crust. I've been trying to teach my friend to bake bread, and for the life of me, I can't figure out what she's doing wrong. Her loaves are always so dense. :shrug:

There's a lot of experts here, so I'm sure someone will be able to lend you some guidance.

I can think of 2 or 3 things to suggest to her -

What type of bread is she baking - white, whole wheat or multi-grain? Whole wheat dough presents some challenges, so if that's what she's working on, I might have some additional ideas.

Also, what is she using to knead her dough - by hand or machine (if machine, what sort of machine?)

1) Consistency of the dough - Make sure that the loaf has enough water. The biggest problem people have when learning to make bread is that they make their dough too dry. The dough should be soft and moist, a bit tacky but not sticky. Not dry. Sticky is when you touch the dough with your fingers, gobs of dough stick to your fingers. Tacky is when you touch the dough with your fingers, the dough tries to stick to your fingers but most of it stays with the dough ball (maybe a tiny bit sticking to your fingers). You might suggest that she purchase a package of frozen bread dough from the supermarket, thaw it out and then work with it some to get the feel for what the proper consistency and gluten development should be for a maximum rise. The type of flour could be playing a part too - Bread flour needs more water than all purpose flour does, and whole wheat flour needs even more than that. Other grains or add-ins could cause the dough to require more water, too.

2) Yeast - What brand/type of yeast is she using and is it still fresh and is she using the correct amount? If it's active dry yeast she can proof it in some water with a little sugar to ensure its viability. Instant yeast is harder to proof, but she could make a little sponge of some water, flour and a little sugar and watch it over the course of an hour or so to see how much it rises. What's important to figure out is where the bread is failing... is it that the dough isn't rising sufficiently during the rise phase or are the loaves failing after they've been shaped, prior to or during baking.

3) Gluten development - If she's not getting a sufficient gluten development, she'll get dense loaves, The windowpane test works great for evaluationg your gluten development (let me know if you need some info on the windowpane test).

4) Punch down/shaping - Could be she's being too agressive and working all/most of the carbon dioxide out of the dough either when she punches down or shapes her loaves. "Punch down" is sort of a mis-nomer... you really want to treat the dough fairly gently and fold the dough in on itself to re-distribute the yeast cells, but you don't want to knock all the air out of the dough.

5) Altitude - Is she baking at high altitude? If so, her bread dough probably needs extra water (because of the dryness) and less salt (to prevent over-rising). Bread rises faster at high altitude, so it might be that the dough is over-rising and falling back down.

Good luck!

First, make sure everything is cold. Measure your flour and keep it in the fridge.

Second, as you're cutting the shortening in with a food processor, do 3/4 of the fat in the form of butter, 1/4 in oil drizzled in as you pulse the thing.

Once the water is sprinkled in, work it as little as possible. For me, that means a maximum of 2 processor pulses. Then dump it out on a sheet of plastic wrap and use the wrap to form it into a ball to chill for a couple of hours. Resting the dough is essential. Then just roll it out.

If you're not using a food processor, chill the bowl and whatever you're using to cut the fat into the flour. Use all hard fat. Again, once the ice water goes in, work it as little as possible. Wrap and chill as above.

The main things you need to remember with pastry are to keep it cold and keep that gluten relaxed. That means you're going to have a crumbly mess when the water goes in and you're going to have to rest the dough both to relax any activated gluten and to have the dough absorb all the water so it's easy to work with.

Once you get the hang of doing it, it's as easy as pie...

Or at least make sure you've got a serious motor.

As for your crust, the main thing is to keep it cold! Use icewater, and don't over-handle it.

Seriously. People beg me to teach them how to make pie crust. The technique is just a little bit different from the usual. No ice water. No chilling. No cutting in. I'll PM it to you if you want it.

Also...if you still want to buy pie dough, Trader Joe's is the best.

she just scored a great deal on one, I'll be she could find one for you too!

Seriously, CraigsList & ebay are good sources for machines - look for lightly used machines or reconditioned models. Or check local small appliance repair shops, sometimes they have good machines at a good price. Also keep your eyes on fliers from home goods shops... they often have sale prices ... expecially any that might be going out of business. Also check out prices on Amazon.com, you might find something good there.