The Reason Food Processor Dough Blades Are Useless
When purchasing a food processor, you'll notice all the handy attachments that come with it. There's everything from cheese graters and veggie choppers to various blades, to name a few. However, if you've noticed a plastic blade and wondered what it's for, it's meant for dough. It's easy to insert, has short arms, and is much duller than the metal blades you're accustomed to. It's dull because some recipes require butter to be cut up finely. The blunt blade kneads the butter into the dry ingredients, making a shaggy dough. However, the dough for most flaky baked goods, such as pies and scones, requires butter evenly distributed throughout the dough. So what is the dough blade good for, anyway?
If we're being honest, it's not a very useful tool. Because it has short arms, it can't reach the ingredients hanging on the sides of the bowl, causing your dough to be quite inconsistent. You'll notice some butter pieces incorporated into the dry ingredients perfectly, while some remain untouched. This often happens with dough recipes that serve an average to small group.
They only work for large batches
Because your standard serving size for pie dough doesn't typically fill the bowl of the food processor, there can be gaps and space for portions of it to hang out and not get incorporated. Therefore, a dough blade only comes in handy if you're whipping up a double batch or a recipe with three and a half cups of flour or more. It's recommended that you stick with your metal blades since they are longer and can reach all the ingredients. And let's face it. It's much faster!
When it comes to cutting and incorporating ingredients into dough, a dough blade is quite ineffective. However, if you're looking to knead yeasted dough, as with bread, and you're making a hefty amount, it can be quite handy. All you have to do is add your ingredients, pulse to start so that everything combines gently, and then turn the processor to high to let the machine do the kneading. This saves you quite a bit of arm work. A food processor is typically meant for cutting, and a stand mixer is more suitable for mixing, which is why the dough hook attachment that comes with a stand mixer is a great option. Of course, you could use a bread machine, which does everything at the push of a button.