Hallo Bonsai
Unfortunately I haven't gotten down to trying this in the tm yet! I'm still trying isi's and chookie's breads !

But I do believe that if u find your dough getting wetter, stickier as the tm is kneading , u should really continue the kneading without adding anymore flour until the stickiness stops.. That's what happens when hand kneading and breadmaker kneading as well. My breadmaker used to do this for at least 30-40 min

hey MJ!! i just wanted to say thanks SOOOOOOO much for trying this out!! 
i havent been trawling the forum and just saw your thread!
i havent been very pleased with my other loaves so far (my entire family and friends prefer the asian-style bread which is 'cottony', 'airy' and sort of melts in your mouth , just like the tang zhong bread and they think the 'western' style bread i bake (crusty, flavorsome) is just weird.

gosh thanks for all the advice & encouragement guys!!

update:  after the 1st rising, my dough changed from being "ragged" to smooth-as-baby-bum.  my foccacia turned out nice (like the way it used to with the breadmaker, exact same recipe) but my pita bread wasn't so fantastic. 

but i do still have a couple of questions (because in the midst of all that distress over getting ragged dough (which i had never experienced in my breadmaker, i had forgotten to take notes),

1. if i am halving the recipe in the edc book for a loaf of bread, do i also halve the kneading time?  (most of the recipes i'm dealing with / intending to use (from my old-breadmaker days) will involve only flour amounts of 250-300g)

2. also, if i'm halving the edc recipes, do i still mix at speed 6 for so long?  (my ingreadients flew all over the inside top of the cover)

3. if i am using some recipes which have worked very well in the breadmaker kneading function and want to use the TM to make the dough, do i need to adjust the flour / water amounts at all?  (since these have worked very well when my breadmaker kneaded the dough)

jo,
your spelt bread looks lovely!!  i am now surfing your blog for all the wonderful bread recipes!  and thanks for the tip abt wheat flour!  i'm starting off with wheat flour before proceeding onto the gluten free stuff (i have in mind to try those GF stuff on your blog), and i will remember to rise the hong kong flour steamed buns more.  (i've yet to find out how to get the asian cookbook in singapore.  my consultant hasn't heard of it)

chookie, did you just say 4 min?  gosh.  i'm going to take a deep breath and try it on my next loaf. and i went to look for your no fuss rolls and isi's portugeuse rolls!  both were just what i was looking for, thanks! (wha'ts sold in our chinese bakeries here are really sweet buns and i don't have a sweet tooth....)

heather, i don't quite understand, do you mean to say that when a recipe has worked very well with hand kneading /breadmaker, and if i want to use the tm to knead it, i will have to adjust the amounts of flour / water / in the original recipe ?
and...i need advice on how to watch through the hole ....i mean, when i do i know i shld add more flour / water?  the 2 doughs that i did yesterday, cleaned the sides of the tm bowl thoroughly, is that it?  or am i to look for something else? and when the kneading time is 2min, do i pause every 30s to peer through the hole or? (sorry to sound dumb!)

leej, noted thanks! 

somebody help!  is there anyone here who has used breadmakers and/or hand kneading to knead their bread doughs prior to having the TM?  or anyone who's familiar with developing gluten in properly kneaded bread dough?

i'm having problems with my bread dough.  and i'm not sure if that's how it's supposed to turn out.

i have 2 questions:

1.  i'm trying to make some simple breads (that i used to make pre-TM days using breadmakers to knead) using the TM kneading functions.  however, the recipes in the EDC called for something like 500g (or upwards) of flour, and 2min at interval speed.  now, if i'm only doing half the amount of flour (say 200-300g), do I knead at 1.5 mins or just 1 min or do i carry on kneading the full 2 mins? how would i know if i under kneaded or over kneaded?  (the same question i have for mixing the flour etc prior to kneading).

2.  the breadmaker i used to use would knead the dough for 20min. and after kneading, the dough would look pretty smooth on the surface.(something like a baby's bum)  plus form a pretty nice "dough window".

today, on the TM my bread dough looked "ragged" on the surface.  I checked the doughs at 1min 30 sec and at 2min and then again at 2min 30s and they looked "ragged" and the "dough window' didnt seem to be forming properly when i took out a bit of dough to stretch it.  not wanting to test my luck any further by kneading any further, i left the doughs to prove.

my question is, is this normal for a TM-kneaded dough?  my dough(s) are  still  proving so i wouldn't know if i failed or not. i'm now wondering if i'll ever be able to make delicious bread dough from the TM!

also, when my consultant demoed a chinese "steamed bun" recipe using the TM to knead and varoma to steam, i recall thinking that the end result was a steamed bun that didn't have a very good texture, and at that point i wasn't able to figure out if that bad texture / mouthfeel was due to insuff kneading of the dough or insuff proving time (chinese steamed buns found in the chinese restaurants typically prove very long, and some of the better restaurants even use a sourdough method when making their steamed buns).

any inputs would be greatly appreciated!

faffa,
the malaysian cookbook is in chinese / english.

thermoheaven,
you mean you bought all the taiwanese books and can't read any of them?  if you are interested in any particular recipe, you can email the page to me and i'll translate it.    (this applies to anyone else reading this post!)

and, i hadn't realised that the asian cookbook was different from the malaysian one!  i had assumed whenever i read posts referring to the asian cookbook that they were referring to the malaysian cookbook!

it'd better be waaaaaayyyyyy better than the malaysian edc.  i think the malaysian edc recipes are all kinda "off".  i've been doing plenty of my own conversions etc after trying out a few dismal ones in the malaysian cookbook.  their 5 grain porridge recipe is way off on the amount of water called for.  i was unfortuntae enough to try it on day 2 of getting my TM and it boiled over and i nearly freaked out.  also, their stir fried greens recipe gives one stir fried yellows, not greens. 

btw, my consultant doesnt know either how to get hold of the taiwanese cookbooks.  so does anyone else have any contacts to the taiwanese folks?  failing which i think i'd have to make a cold call to the taiwanese distrbutor.

thanks meagan!  unfortunately i'm in singapore!  i hope it is in chinese or some lang i can understand tho.  i'm gonna call my consultant up and ask her how to order (we get our stuff from malaysia).

thanks frozzie, that helps to keep a perspective on things!