Gingerbread men dough rock hard

[ali]

Hi everyone,

So I started to bake gingerbread men last night, and used this recipe: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/gingerbread-men-0 (except I used maple syrup instead of golden syrup and brown cane sugar instead of soft brown sugar).

I also left the dough in the fridge for at least an hour... But when I got it out, it was rock hard, like impossible to roll out. I tried leaving it to come to room temperature... as well as kneading it a bit and then finally adding some more butter, but then the texture was super powdery.

Any ideas what went wrong, and whether I can rescue it (I still have half of it left in the fridge)?

It feels like something happened with the warming up of the cane sugar and then the chilling it... (there were quite big grains of sugar in the dough).

Thank you very very much for any tips you might have!

 

[chassis]

Follow the recipe precisely, do not substitute and follow the method precisely. If the recipe you are using is good, you will end with a good result.

Reasons why your result may have fallen short as you described:

- overkneaded (gluten formation)
- too dry from refrigeration
- ingredient substitution
- insufficient liquid
- overbaked

 

[Norcalbaker59]

Hi everyone,

So I started to bake gingerbread men last night, and used this recipe: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/gingerbread-men-0 (except I used maple syrup instead of golden syrup and brown cane sugar instead of soft brown sugar).

I also left the dough in the fridge for at least an hour... But when I got it out, it was rock hard, like impossible to roll out. I tried leaving it to come to room temperature... as well as kneading it a bit and then finally adding some more butter, but then the texture was super powdery.

Any ideas what went wrong, and whether I can rescue it (I still have half of it left in the fridge)?

It feels like something happened with the warming up of the cane sugar and then the chilling it... (there were quite big grains of sugar in the dough).

Thank you very very much for any tips you might have!

Substitutions you made won’t make any difference to the recipe since maple syrup is a invert sugar, an acceptable substitute for golden syrup; cane brown sugar is superior to soft brown sugar. Soft brown sugar is a faux brown sugar, made with treacle and syrup for color. Cane brown sugar is made with molasses.

If you are not in the UK, the the issues would be the flour and butter.


Domestic plain flour in the UK is naturally low in protein, about 9% protein. The plain flour is equivalent to cake and pastry flour in the US and other countries.

If you are not in the UK, and you used all purpose flour, you used a much higher protein flour. Higher protein flour will absorb more water/liquid than lower protein flour.

Butter in the EU and UK has a minimum of 82% butterfat. Most butter is 83% butterfat. Again, if you are not in EU or UK, and did not select a butter specifically labeled European styled or an import, then the butter would be much lower in butterfat, around 80%.

If you are in Canada there butter is low in butterfat and particularly (famously) hard. Pliability of butter depends not just on the percentage of butterfat but on the tempering technique. Tempering is proprietary. Some dairies have perfected it to an art such as Kerrygold. Even cold, straight from the refrigerator, Kerrygold is very pliable.