And the light bulb goes on! The one in the baker...

[susandennis]

A few cookie batches ago, meowmensteen shared that in her bakery they roll out the dough between papers (wax or parchment). I tried it once and it made a huge mess and got the dough everywhere.

The recipes I've seen so far say ball up the dough and put it in the fridge to chill before you mess with it. This makes a big old lump of hard dough that requires muscle to roll out and lots of flour.

But, today's recipe said to put it between two sheets of paper and roll it out before the fridge. I first thought they meant make a tube out of the dough but finally, it dawned on me that they were saying "do what meowmensteen said"!!

I took the soft sticky dough, no extra flour, between two sheets of parchment. It rolled out very easily and THEN I put it in the fridge. Bonus... this chills a heck of a lot faster than big old lumps! And it was a breeze to cut out. Not one tiny bit of flour needed.

The first batch is out of the oven. They are quite delicious. They haven't cooled all the way so I'm hoping they get snappier and less cake. I'm holding off on baking the next batch until these are all the way cool. I may try cooking the next batch longer. I may ice these. I may not.

I am absolutely going to redo this recipe - using bakers ammonia instead of baking powder and using orange extract instead of orange zest.

Here's the recipe I used.

Comments

[meowmensteen]

Ahh. There's the disconnect. I was trying to figure out why your dough was sticking to the paper. It wasn't chilled yet. I like that method because the dough is easier to roll out while it's soft.

[susandennis]

the chilling actually reduces the sticking to the paper. very much better.

[adafrog.livejournal.com]

Cool.

[teragramm.livejournal.com]

I make one cookie recipe that has to be chilled and rolled. I'm going to try this method next time. Rolling the dough out with flour is so messy and I have always thought it changed the taste and look of the cookie. Thanks for the tip!

[msconduct.livejournal.com]

You've got a good alternative plan anyway, but the key to the big old lump problem is the time you leave it in the fridge. I find 30 minutes is about the sweet spot but it depends on the stiffness of the dough and the bigliness of the lump.