Dough - problems with kneading.

stmol32

Sorry if this has been done before, I had a quick search but couldn't find my exact problem.

I've just tried to make croissants and have had the same problem every time I make bread, pastry or anything that needs kneading.

The dough sticks to my hands so much that I end up wasting quite a lot.
Am I missing a trick here?

Rosy Posy

Add more flour? Don't go nuts though or you'll make it heavy.

stmol32

Rosy Posy wrote: »

Add more flour? Don't go nuts though or you'll make it heavy.

Thanks for the reply Rosy Posy.
I hear you, but baking is the only time I follow the recipe to the letter.

If it's a soup or sauce that calls for 25 mls I'm comfortable just eyeballing it, but when it's baking the measurements of flour mean the difference between bread and scones.

What gets me is sometimes I follow the recipe and the dough comes out nice and stretchy like it's supposed to be, if it looks too wet and I add more flour it seems ok but then I knead it and realise I added too much.

I'm thinking the now that the answer is a bread maker just for the mixing attachment but surely people have been making dough and pastry long before these machines were invented.

Rosy Posy

The difference between bread and scones is fat content, milk instead of water and rubbing in the butter. You can actually be a bit more creative with baking than you'd think. Another possibility is that you have 'hot' hands? My granny used to go on about this all the time, apparently it's a factor. If hand kneading isn't working out for you you could try no knead recipes- they tend to make lovely bread. There's a good one in the Ballymaloe book, or google it. For pizzas or flat bread just add extra flour- they don't need to rise much anyway.

Tree

With wet doughs, you have to accept sticky hands and scrape the dough off with something flat (I just the back of a butter knife) before washing your hands. Some of the very wet doughs can be folded with a pair of scrapers rather than using your hands (I use a chopstick to stir/poke/fold my usual bread, though I did snap one because it was stiffer than I realised)

pwurple

Humidity and room temp affect bread doughs though, so most of the recipies I use I have to adjust on the day, either adding a little more water or flour.

Too sticky = add flour
Breaking up = add water

On kneading, i used a bread machine to start us off with baking our own bread. Just used it for doughs, would fill it in the morning and the kneaded and risen dough wouod be ready for me when I got home from work. Never really like the baked bread from the machine.

When the motor burnt out I started using the dough hook in the kenwood, but I really need to watch that more. The dough climbs up the hook, or gets into a bashing rhythm where the machine tries to jump off the table. I usually let it knead of ten minutes in the machine, and then do the rest by hand.

rozeboosje

Rosy Posy wrote: »

Another possibility is that you have 'hot' hands? My granny used to go on about this all the time, apparently it's a factor.

Did she ever tell you what one could do about it?

Rosy Posy

rozeboosje wrote: »

Did she ever tell you what one could do about it?

Afaik it's dispositional. One thing I'd say about croissant dough is because of the high fat content treat it more like pastry than dough. Handle as little and as lightly as possible using the tips of your fingers and at a push the heel of your hand. My granny used to make me hold up my hands to her and the palms would have to be clean.

huskerdu

Paul Hollywoods advice is to oil your hands, to avoid sticky hands without being heavy handed with the flour.

its unavaoidable with enriched doughs, but oily hands do help.

rozeboosje

Rosy Posy wrote: »

Afaik it's dispositional. One thing I'd say about croissant dough is because of the high fat content treat it more like pastry than dough. Handle as little and as lightly as possible using the tips of your fingers and at a push the heel of your hand. My granny used to make me hold up my hands to her and the palms would have to be clean.

Well, in my case it was just bread dough, but I've been experimenting with very high hydration (80% or more) which is challenging at the best of times... But yeah, I get terrible stickiness issues. Maybe I should put an ice bucket to the ready.... LOL

rozeboosje

huskerdu wrote: »

Paul Hollywoods advice is to oil your hands, to avoid sticky hands without being heavy handed with the flour.

its unavaoidable with enriched doughs, but oily hands do help.

Cheers. Would that be ok with bread dough, too? I guess if I slap and fold it a few times, then oil my hands and not fold it too much after that, ensuring that the outer layer of the dough stays on the outside, using a bit of oil on your hands in *bread* making wouldn't be too big a deal?

huskerdu

rozeboosje wrote: »

Cheers. Would that be ok with bread dough, too? I guess if I slap and fold it a few times, then oil my hands and not fold it too much after that, ensuring that the outer layer of the dough stays on the outside, using a bit of oil on your hands in *bread* making wouldn't be too big a deal?

Its specifically for bread making that he recommends oil. He thinks it's much better than flour as too much flour will make the dough too dry.

rozeboosje

Great! I shall definitely give this a go, then. Hope you didn't mind me raising this side issue, stmol32 ...

stmol32

rozeboosje wrote: »

Great! I shall definitely give this a go, then. Hope you didn't mind me raising this side issue, stmol32 ...

Jaysis not a bother 'tall rozeboosje, learning new things about cooking can never be a bad thing can it?

rozeboosje

Indeed :-)