The Trick of Working With Wet Doughs

I think a big part of the reason that cookbook authors have favored stiffer, tigher doughs over the years is because home bakers tend to be less comfortable working with slack ones. Wet dough tends to be sticky if it isn’t well-floured, and that just plain flusters some folks. If there’s a trick to handling wetter dough, it’s simply to remember that there’s no such thing as using too much flour during the cutting and portioning part of the baking process. My hamburger bun, ciabatta, focaccia, and pizza doughs swim in extra flour on my work board, and are none the worse the wear for it. Yeah, sure I get flour everyewhere, but that’s how I know I’m a baker, dernit.