Knife to Cut Dough

Knife to Cut Dough - High angle of unrecognizable woman cutting dough on cutting board on table in kitchen

What's the best type of knife [and/or method] for cutting raw bread dough? Is a special dough blade necessary, or will any blade suffice?



Best Answer

I work in a fine dining restaurant, and the standard implement is a bench scraper AKA a dough knife AKA a bench knife. It's basically a stiff, 6" wide sheet of stiff metal with a handle, and can pressed or rocked down on the counter to cut dough into portions. It can also be used to move shaped bread or rolls, cut pastry, fold sticky doughs, and scrape off the counter for cleanup. They're not really knife-sharp per se, but the metal is narrow enough to cut dough well, and a knife would go dull against the hard surface anyway. The best models have measurements engraved into them, so you can consistently size your products, and will stand vertically on the handle (for icing cakes).

Now, for SLASHING risen breads before baking, the correct tool is something called a lame, which is basically a razor with a handle. Or, you can just use your really sharp chef knife (your chef knife IS razor-sharp, right?) and spritz it with pan spray to keep the dough from sticking.




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Knife to Cut Dough - Women making homemade pasta in kitchen



What is the best knife for cutting bread?

A serrated knife excels at slicing bread, as well as a few other specialty kitchen tasks. Serrated knives have long\u2014at least 7 inches\u2014blades with sharp serrations instead of a smooth edge. Unsurprisingly, serrated knives are often interchangeably called bread knives.

What is a dough blade?

Many food processors come with dough blades, which typically feature short, blunt arms that gently pull and tear dough to knead it. But because the short arms don't extend to the outside rim of the work bowl, they're limited in their ability to pick up flour when small amounts are processed.

What tool do you use to cut bread?

A lame (/l\u0251\u02d0m, l\xe6m/) is a double-sided blade that is used to slash the tops of bread loaves in baking. A lame is used to score (also called slashing or docking) bread just before the bread is placed in the oven.



How to Cut Pastry Dough With Knives




More answers regarding knife to Cut Dough

Answer 2

A knife large enough to not require a slicing motion. You want chopping or even better rolling motion. Any sharp knife will be ok but I have some preferences:

In a pinch I use my plastic dough scraper. A metal scraper with a flat blade is adequate, for example this one.

Pizza cutters are ok but if there is too much dough then they get bogged down.

My all time favorite tool for this - and I have more than one just for this purpose - is an ulu. This is a curved knife used traditionally by native Alaskans. Mine is big and rolls through a lot of dough easily.

ulu

from this one on Amazon

Answer 3

Assuming it is just yeast dough and you aren't trying to preserve some lift characteristic, you don't want a knife. You should have a bench scraper as your go-to tool for handling dough, it is not sharp, it is wide and flat so it does an excellent job of scraping dough up when it sticks to the bread board, and it is completely capable of cutting through dough if you are subdividing.

It is also plenty handy for actual bench scraping... i.e. getting remnants of old dough off your cutting/bread board/counter.

Answer 4

My mother used to roll a sheet of dough into a tube for cinnamon rolls, then cut the individual rolls by wrapping a piece of string around the tube and pulling both ends until it cut through.

Answer 5

For most kinds of dough any blade will do, but you may want to sprinkle some flour on the knife if the dough is sticky (especially if the dough already contains flour; for non-flour ones, it may be a problem)

Answer 6

I've never seen a special knife, but I often use a long, thin, smooth edged (not serrated) blade. Cuts cleanly. Doesn't stick. Doesn't crunch the dough.

The only knife I would avoid would be a serrated blade because of how the teeth "hook" material to tear.

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