How to Prevent Dough from Sticking to Your Hands - Uncle Henry's Pretzel Bakery (2024)

FAQs

How to Prevent Dough from Sticking to Your Hands - Uncle Henry's Pretzel Bakery? ›

Rub oil on your hands

Overworked dough will feet wet and sticky, and it will ruin the overall quality of your baked good. Most people over-knead their dough because they left it in the mixer for too long. An easy way to avoid this is to simply knead your dough by hand.

The dough may get sticky as you knead, and that's fine. Just sprinkle a little more flour on your hands. Do not add any more flour than you really need—use just enough to prevent it from sticking too much to your hands and work surface. Dough should still feel a little tacky.

Whatever surface you work on, it's important that it be dusted with enough flour to prevent the dough from sticking. But do not use too much or the dough will become tough.

The foremost tip to prevent your dough from sticking to the dough is to coat your rolling pin with extra flour. It is one of the standard methods to prevent the dough clumps from sticking to the pin. So, cover your rolling pin with excess flour to fill the pins' pores and grooves to have a non-grease coating.

By far, the best methods for preventing the pretzels from sticking were a plain greased baking sheet and the silicone baking mats. I prefer using the mats to help keep the pretzel bottoms from scorching, especially if you're using a thin baking sheet.

If your dough is too sticky and it's impossible to work with you can add some extra flour, just a little at a time. Make sure you weigh the extra flour you add and then you'll be able to adjust the recipe correctly the next time you bake.

After sprinkling your workstation with flour, place some on your hands to prevent the dough from sticking. Keep in mind, though, that this technique can make things a little messy. Plus, you may find that you have to continuously reapply the flour as you continue working your dough.

Just keep a little dish of water and dip your fingers in when it starts sticking. Voila! It's magic.

Oil does as well and is better suited for keeping the dough from sticking to a bowl or rising container than water is. Water is more readily absorbed. Paul Hollywood shows how using oil instead of flour to knead bread, which helps keep the texture of the dough consistent.

What can I use instead of flour to stop sticking? ›

When it comes to keeping your dough from sticking to the pan, either flour or cornmeal will work. But if you want to add even more taste, and make it an even better experience for your customers, try cornmeal instead!

If it sticks during rolling, sprinkle flour liberally around perimeter of dough. 2. Slide bench scraper under dough, dragging flour along with it. Repeat, sliding scraper and more flour under dough until it releases completely from counter.

Try a light spray of cooking oil or line the pan with parchment paper if it's a persistant problem. I'm a fan of baking parchment paper. The treated surface or coatings on this paper give it a non-stick surface and resistance to higher temperatures than normal paper.

Sounds like you have too much water and not enough flour. If the dough isn't supposed to be sticky, just add more flour or coat your hands in it. Alternatively, use a wooden spoon to knead it if the recipe calls for it to be somewhat sticky and then wipe it off with flour.

Oil or flour your tin or baking tray

If I am using a baking tray for a free form loaf then I will dust it with flour, rice flour or semolina to prevent any sticky bits of dough cementing themselves to the tray.

Baking Term

If the dough you are using is "sticky" it will stick to your finger when you touch it. If it is "tacky" then it will pull back to the dough or break off clean.

Unsalted dough mixes faster, has little resistance to extension and feels sticky. Bakers who delay the salt addition during mixing find that once salt is added, the dough tightens, becoming more difficult to stretch, but also becomes stronger, and is thus capable of stretching farther without ripping.

Sugar has a significant effect on the stickiness of flour-based products. Increasing the sugar content in dough leads to higher stickiness . This is because sugar attracts water, making the dough more moist and sticky.

If your dough feels too sticky, you've likely added too much water. Go back to the mixing step and add a 4:1 mixture of flour and salt, a little at a time, until the dough is no longer sticky. You can also try rolling the dough out between sheets of parchment paper.