A surface covered with small tiles separated by grooves filled with grout. I recently remodeled a 1955 kitchen. The original counters were covered with 3" x 3" yellow tiles separated by grout which was various shades of dirty grey. I searched for options of material which is totally flat. I found one. It doesn't matter what it is, though I do love it for its beauty and the utter absence of any kind of grooves.
I have to agree with the maple table. I have used them in the past and loved it. I only have stainless prep tables now but we are getting ready to move to our kitchen dining room and I will have a 6x2 foot maple table to work on. I am looking forward to working on it.
The husband is pushing for a kitchen re-do now that our old-fashioned tiles, and accompanying grout, around the sink are looking grungy. We are almost at the point of choosing silestone, a type of quartz counter top. I had not even considered the benefit of an improved work surface because I am so accustomed to trotting out the large cutting board or working in the one area with formica, a cute retro formica. But, evidently, like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, all I have to do is use the dining room table. Will give that a try on the next bread.
Also strongly considering open shelving, which causes the adult daughter's eyes to roll. Not as strong as a teenage death stare. Another similarity to Dorothy is the cute dog. I won't destroy his anonymity by posting a picture.
I have three maple tops... one island and two tables 5ftx 3ft and 6 ft x 3ft...also have my 7 ft x 30 inch length of soapstone. They both have their places. The chill of the soapstone and the ability to spray it with water to do stretch and folds rather than use flour greatly enhances the hydration of the dough and ease of handling.In these pics I was using flour but have since switched to only water. I love the maple for the ability to shape as the dough grips the counter in a pleasing way. So a couple of different surfaces really is the ideal.
They are far from a dream surface, but I use pizza pans. They clean up easily. All of the bench flour and sticky mess is cleaned up by just running water over them while scraping with a spatula. They can also be easily moved if I want to chill down an uncooperative mass of sticky dough by putting it in the fridge on a pizza pan. The chilled dough becomes much easier to work with.
Also, and this is not ideal, or something I plan for, but I have had very high hydration dough become so unmanageable that I could not work with it without dusting it and turning it upside down to move it from one pizza pan to another. While the dough is upside down, and as close to the "fresh" pan as possible, I gently scrape it off with a thin pancake spatula, or it would stretch too much, and fall too hard if I just let it fall off under its own weight. Once it drops off, and gently plops down onto a "fresh" pan, it's on its "back" with just enough bench flour under it to enable me to finish shaping.
Pizza pans lack any kind of aesthetic appeal, but they are very practical. Also, if you want to annoy everyone else in the house, and scare the cats away, use pizza pans to do slap and folds. They make a LOT of noise.
I know it's an old joke, but in this case I actually WAS asking for a friend. For the forseeable future, I am in a tiny apartment with an old electric oven that is consistently 30 degrees off; I don't really have a "counter" to speak of and generally make do by putting a huge old cutting board on top of my stove.
My coworker, however, is in the midst of a massive kitchen renovation. I'm kind of flattered, because she says that my recent bread-baking obsession has led her to prioritize a baking surface in her plans. She was pleased to hear all the positive words about maple, because the end portion of the counter is set to be just that. The rest, I believe, will be formica.
I would love to have a large, permanent wooden surface someday. Charlize Theron will likely not be part of the setup. The pizza pans idea is particularly intriguing to me at this point, though -- what size are we talking here?
The ideal then is probably some kind of silestone or quartz counters and a maple tabletop or counter elsewhere. I think that shifting to the dining table, which we barely use for dining, more for an extra computer space, is worth a try as the place to shape the loaves. Or maybe the kitchen redo should include one maple countertop. Already imagining.
would be a full on wooden table. Made of either Cherry or Pine. Nice and big with so much space.
All I have now is a retro dining table. Cheap plastic laminate. And it's small. Very frustrating most of time!!!
A surface covered with small tiles separated by grooves filled with grout. I recently remodeled a 1955 kitchen. The original counters were covered with 3" x 3" yellow tiles separated by grout which was various shades of dirty grey. I searched for options of material which is totally flat. I found one. It doesn't matter what it is, though I do love it for its beauty and the utter absence of any kind of grooves.
Hands down best for dough even though I love my soapstone countertops.
Paul
That's what I've got, my father used it when making his bread, and I use it for my bread making, and I love it. Easy to clean and nice smooth top.
The husband is pushing for a kitchen re-do now that our old-fashioned tiles, and accompanying grout, around the sink are looking grungy. We are almost at the point of choosing silestone, a type of quartz counter top. I had not even considered the benefit of an improved work surface because I am so accustomed to trotting out the large cutting board or working in the one area with formica, a cute retro formica. But, evidently, like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, all I have to do is use the dining room table. Will give that a try on the next bread.
Also strongly considering open shelving, which causes the adult daughter's eyes to roll. Not as strong as a teenage death stare. Another similarity to Dorothy is the cute dog. I won't destroy his anonymity by posting a picture.
As hard a maple table you can get. Not a cheap option but the best I've used to date
Josh
I have three maple tops... one island and two tables 5ftx 3ft and 6 ft x 3ft...also have my 7 ft x 30 inch length of soapstone. They both have their places. The chill of the soapstone and the ability to spray it with water to do stretch and folds rather than use flour greatly enhances the hydration of the dough and ease of handling.In these pics I was using flour but have since switched to only water. I love the maple for the ability to shape as the dough grips the counter in a pleasing way. So a couple of different surfaces really is the ideal.
Charlize Theron
They are far from a dream surface, but I use pizza pans. They clean up easily. All of the bench flour and sticky mess is cleaned up by just running water over them while scraping with a spatula. They can also be easily moved if I want to chill down an uncooperative mass of sticky dough by putting it in the fridge on a pizza pan. The chilled dough becomes much easier to work with.
Also, and this is not ideal, or something I plan for, but I have had very high hydration dough become so unmanageable that I could not work with it without dusting it and turning it upside down to move it from one pizza pan to another. While the dough is upside down, and as close to the "fresh" pan as possible, I gently scrape it off with a thin pancake spatula, or it would stretch too much, and fall too hard if I just let it fall off under its own weight. Once it drops off, and gently plops down onto a "fresh" pan, it's on its "back" with just enough bench flour under it to enable me to finish shaping.
Pizza pans lack any kind of aesthetic appeal, but they are very practical. Also, if you want to annoy everyone else in the house, and scare the cats away, use pizza pans to do slap and folds. They make a LOT of noise.
I know it's an old joke, but in this case I actually WAS asking for a friend. For the forseeable future, I am in a tiny apartment with an old electric oven that is consistently 30 degrees off; I don't really have a "counter" to speak of and generally make do by putting a huge old cutting board on top of my stove.
My coworker, however, is in the midst of a massive kitchen renovation. I'm kind of flattered, because she says that my recent bread-baking obsession has led her to prioritize a baking surface in her plans. She was pleased to hear all the positive words about maple, because the end portion of the counter is set to be just that. The rest, I believe, will be formica.
I would love to have a large, permanent wooden surface someday. Charlize Theron will likely not be part of the setup. The pizza pans idea is particularly intriguing to me at this point, though -- what size are we talking here?
My dream table top is hard north american maple laminated in 3cm strips with an oil finish.
anything but stainless steel!
The ideal then is probably some kind of silestone or quartz counters and a maple tabletop or counter elsewhere. I think that shifting to the dining table, which we barely use for dining, more for an extra computer space, is worth a try as the place to shape the loaves. Or maybe the kitchen redo should include one maple countertop. Already imagining.