hi, any time I mold dough on a "lightly floured surface" it picks up too much flour and the recipe turns out bad. if i don't use that amount of flour, the dough is too sticky and i am unable to even pick it up. so far i have had this problem with blueberry scones and cinnamon roll cookies. any help would be much appreciated!
Scone dough should not be sticky, and certainly not so sticky that it cannot be picked up. It sounds more like an over-hydration issue than a shaping or handling problem.
To understand why your scone dough is too sticky to handle, you will need to analyze the ingredients and recipe you are using.
The type of liquid, whether cream, milk, or buttermilk, affects dough hydration because each has a different fat-to-water ratio. Likewise, the type of flour significantly changes hydration: a lower-protein white flour with 9% to 10% protein will absorb less liquid than an unbleached, medium-protein flour with 10.5% to 11.5% protein.
The country of origin of the recipe also matters if it was developed elsewhere. Eggs, dairy, and flour differ significantly by country. For instance, egg sizes in Canada and the United States are smaller than in the United Kingdom and European Union even though they are labeled “large.” U.S. whipping cream contains 30% to 35% milk fat, heavy cream contains 36% milk fat. In the United Kingdom, pouring cream contains about 20% milk fat, whipping cream 36%, and double cream 48%. Flour in the US is significantly stronger than flour in the UK. Flour in places like Canada and Australia are significantly stronger than flours in the US.
