Is my stiff dough too moist?

[seans_potato_business]

I am making these currently: Basil Tomato Rolls - Allrecipes

My problem is the idea of a "stiff dough". When is the dough stiff?

When I was trying to manipulate the dough, it was far more sticky than desired, so I added more flour than called for in the recipe. I could not transfer it to a lightly floured surface because it would just take up the flour and then begin to stick to the board, so I did it mostly all in my hands and just squashed it around for a while. When I decided I was done, my hands were covered in it and I found it quite upsetting. Shouldn't the dough be drier than that?

 

[JoeV]

I looked over the recipe and found that the hydration is at 60%, which a lot of my bread recipes use (except the NYT which is around 79-80%). I can only think that there was something amiss in how you measured out the flour or the water that gave you such a sticky dough. Personally, when I get a new recipe I convert all volume measurements for flour, milk and water into weight, and measure each on my digital scale (my flour averages around 5 oz per cup, so that is what I use as a constant for all recipes, and adjust moisture accordingly). This way I never have to concern myself that I measured the liquid wrong or that the flour had more moisture in it today than it did last week. A pound is still a pound, and an ounce is still an ounce when measured on a scale. If you don't have one, you should consider getting one. It makes recipes repeatable as long as you document the weight of your ingredients.

How did it turn out in the end? It looks like a good recipe.

JoeV

 

[seans_potato_business]

I found the bread part to be bland Disappointing after a lot of hassle :'(

I'll consider using a computer program to help me document my culinary discoveries

 

[JoeV]

I found the bread part to be bland Disappointing after a lot of hassle :'(

I'll consider using a computer program to help me document my culinary discoveries

The only program you need is a word processing program like Word or a simple text program. You can even just write down your ingredients then transfer them to a document and store them in a file just for bread recipes. I do that and it makes it easy to share recipes with people by e-mail by attaching it to the e-mail. Send me a PM with your e-mail and I'll e-mail you a couple of my recipes as examples of how I set them up.

I found an explanation for you about stiffness of dough using the baker's percentages at Bakers Percentages - Revised . Go all the way to the bottom of the page and it explains it in Chart 1.

Good luck, and keep experimenting. BTW, I'm surprised the olive oil and sugar gave you a bland bread. If you try it again, replace the white granulated sugar with brown sugar or dark brown sugar. I use that in my Italian bread recipe from Emeril on the Food network, and everyone raves about it. Very simple and very tasty.



JoeV