Kneading surface

Hi David: The downside I can think of is marble stays cold...which makes it ideal for pastries and piecrusts with a high level of fats, but not so good for bread dough which likes warmer temps.  The wood would maintain a warmer temperature.  I have a kneading board made by my grandfather and it has a lip on either long side (think      |__________
                |   shape), which makes it handy...the lip pointing down rests against the edge of the table and keeps the board flush with the table (i can lean into it and hold it in place) and the lip pointing up on the far side keeps the flour and dough from spilling over the edge. And it's reversible!

You might be able to get along with a really large cutting board.  Same idea, probably costs less.  Or if you're handy, make one. 

I was at a home show recently and stopped by one kitchen display and when I leaned on the counter it was warm!  I asked the salesman why I should buy a heated counter and he shrugged, "If you have money you don't know what to do with."  I'm not in that category--yet--but it might be nice for rising doughs!

BTW, the salesman was handing out chocolates...which had been nicely melted by his heated counter.  Hmmm. 

Windi

Philadelphia PA

Along these lines, does the counter material really make much of a difference at all?  I work my dough right on the formica countertop (I'm fortunate to have a large, bare island as my workspace), and seem to get good results, but I'm not in the business of making artisnal loaves (yet).

For Mother's Day, I received a nice size board from my kids.  It has a ruler engraved on all four sides and circles of various sizes.  I'm thinking those circles will come in real handy for pita and flat breads.  Now I don't have to keep buying rulers to replace the ones that come up missing, like tape.   

I like a wood board because it seems to grab the dough some and add to the kneading process.  Is that my imagination?  Terry

Hi David,

I use sheets of high density polyethylene that can be put in the dishwasher. I buy the sheets from a plastics dealer and cut them into usable pieces. We use them for all sorts of food preparation. They're really great from a clean-up point of view or more aptly they help contain the mess. I've become so used to them that I used them as a backing to parchment paper to empty the bannetons on and as a surrogate peel to place the loaves in the oven (have to be fast otherwise they'll start melting).

Wood has a natural affinity for dough. It has the right amount of frictional resistance to hold the dough in place while holding enough flour to prevent sticking. Most bread boards seem to be made out of a lighter wood for some reason. Cutting boards are usually made of hardwood and are usually much heavier. One really interesting fact that has emerged, concerning wood, is that it doesn't harbor bacteria on its surface. The scientific world had written wood off as a sanitary surface by assumption. It wasn't till someone had the temerity to acutally test the assumed hypothesis and voila! It proved to be not so! There seems to be a natural system that reduces harmful bacteria from the surface after being cleaned with warm water whereas plastic remained contaminated. As an interesting aside it seemed than none of the scientific people had noticed the successful use of wood in gastronomy since the dawn of civilization.

The short and the long of it is that poly is nice if you have a dishwasher than can deliver NSF recommended cleanliness otherwise, wood is, and has been used for making bread, even when it was made from acorn paste...,

Wild-Yeast

Hi David,

Yeah, it slides around a bit. I've changed my kneading technique alleviating most of it but it still slides around some. It's a small penalty compared to the overall benefits. They can be rolled up for storage for instance. Refrigerated marble is of course the penultimate flour surface especially for pastries if you can afford it...,

Wild-Yeast

I have a roll of that somewhere!  I use it to isolate bench mounted wood working tools and to keep them from moving around.  Thanks for connecting the dots to the breadmaking application...,

Wild-Yeast 

I have a huge wood table and wood counters. I was going it on a large silicone mat. I wet the counter and then it sticks. But with very vigourous kneeding, it moves, so I end up just doing it on the wood. But the clean up is a bit of a pain. I let the bits of dough dry and then chip them off with the square end of my measuring spoons. And this is an every day ordeal. So, I was wondering, if I had a big wood board, would I need to clean it as well as I have to for my counterspace or table? Or is that the beauty of kneeding boards, that they can be left "dirty"?

Jane 

David, someone else answered your question for me.  It is great stuff for under your boards.

Janedo, I use my bench knife and give it a really good scraping then wipe it with a dry paper towel.  Occasionally, I sprinkle salt on the board and rub it with half a lemon, then I wipe it off good and when totally dry, I wipe mineral oil all over it and let it set until it is all absorbed. This cleans it and keeps it from drying out too much.  Terry 

Jane, I use a plastic mesh scouring pad (wet) to clean the flour from my old wooden board, followed by a thorough wipe down with a wet cloth. That gets the flour off pretty easily.

I'd hesitate to allow dried flour to stay on any surface you'll use for kneading because bits of it are bound to break off and turn into flour shrapnel in your next loaf.

I go through quite a few green scouring pads as well. I just can't help but think about all those bakers that have yards of wood surface to clean.

As for bacteria, when I arrived in France I couldn't believe the whole country wasn't dead yet from bacteria, because compared to North Americans the French are very unhygenic. Then with time I realized that it pretty much doesn't make a difference and the only terrible bacterial illnesses I'd hear about were in the States. And I don't know why that is! I eat raw eggs and uncooked meat here while every one of my american cook books makes me think that those two things could kill you. Any answers to that question?

I am now in between the two. I figure our bodies need to be in a non-clean environment to build up resistance, but maintaining a minimum of cleanliness without getting freaky about it. I have wood counter tops and I don't even clean them that well (just a good sponge off, no detergent). But I don't cut meat on them!

Jane 

When we're on our sailboat, where space is very limited, I use a large cookie sheet (with a turned-up lip) for kneading.  May not be ideal, but it keeps the mess to a minimum and it works.    

Sometimes I think we're (U.S.) just TOO much of clean freaks.  We spend about 6 months a year in Mexico and I've yet to get ill.    The eggs are not refrigerated; don't even want to think where the meat has been, but yet we don't have any ill effects.  (I do wash the veggies very carefully . . . not sure what they use for fertilizer!)  We started out being very careful, no ice cubes, etc.   Now I drink the tap water with ice with no ill effects.   Guess it's all what you get use to!

Galley Wench

but I haven't travelled abroad for many years. Think of this, though: wood heals itself. There have been studies done comparing natural wooden kitchen surfaces and plastic/man-made surfaces and the wood won out. The man-made surfaces REQUIRE bleaching to be sanitary but in a fairly short time the wood surfaces disinfect themselves. What was God thinking?

Then the foreign markets and food... I love America first, then perhaps England, then the others fall somewhere after, sorry if that offends you. But we don't do everything like smart people might if given the chance. For instance, were it not for the law I would have chickens in the backyard. I'm not sure when eggs need refrigeration but it seems the shell should do alright for awhile. The health problem isn't refrigeration, it's contamination of the insides and this happens while yet in the chicken, because of unsanitary circumstances in their habitat. These little beasties aren't allowed to roam free in most commercial egg production farms, but live cooped up (pardon). It's harder to keep sanitary under those conditions. Same with beef. Let them roam and their pastures can do something to decompose their waste, whereas having six billion of them in a hundred square feet is more difficult. Again, if I had a bigger backyard I would have cows too. 

I don't really want to go back to small family farms where we eat or starve based on how well we farm, but perhaps if we all cared to influence the market to be more sensible, as compared to the current trends, we could all trust our daily fare more.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it,

Lee 

Since everyone is talking about kneading surfaces on this thread, I just thought I'd thow something in.

I don't know, some of you who work right on the counter, may find this useful. When I get a dried out film of bread dough stuck to the counter, (you know how hard it can be to clean off,)
I get a towel steamy hot at the faucet, and wring it gently, just till it doesn't drip, but leave it pretty soppy. Then place it on the counter over the offending area. The water in the towel soaks the spot, and in 5-10 minutes, it should be damp enough to wipe easier. If you're in a hurry to get your counter clean, or it's an extra stubborn spot, it should work, if you wet the towel again, and leave it for a few more minutes.

Hope this is helpful to someone.

-Sarah

I tried something different tonight, being too lazy to lug out my heavy kneading board. After the autolyse, I just lightly sprayed my countertop with canola oil and turned out the dough on the counter. No issues kneading, stretching, or folding and the cleanup was quick.

I usually knead on my formica kitchen table or in the big plastic basin I use as a mixing bowl.  Just a smear of oil unless I need to work in some more flour. To clean up I just scrape with my dough tool--it's just a piece of stainless steel with a wooden handle--my most used piece of baking equipment.

I baked bread  for a cafe for a while and did all my work on the stainless steel workbenches.  Not my favourite surface but easy to clean.  It was great in the hot Aussie summer but chilled the dough in the winter.

Liz

We have been talking about building a new house.  She more seriously than I; I think I would prefer retirement over house payments.  Anyway, the kitchen is mine and I want solid maple countertops throughout.  She was opposed until I pointed out that the pine floors in our 70 year old house still look pretty good.

Does anyone else out there knead without a surface?

I use Bertinet's slap-and-pull a lot (throw sticky dough down on counter, pull, fold, repeat).

But recently I've found myself doing the same thing without the counter--pulling and pushing the dough without it ever leaving my hands, "in the air," so to speak.

Sort of what like this girl is doing with"marshmallow taffy," but with a big hunk of dough: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqbx6ghzNqU

So far, it's worked pretty well--the gluten develops faster for me when than I use a counter, and there's no counter clean-up!

I've pretty much decided to get a piece of marble to lay over my 40 yr old butcher block that has become such a pain to clean. Does anyone have any comment about the finish? I was thinking that get it lightly bead/sand blasted might be better than the high gloss surface I usually see on it.

Thanks,

Max