How To Easily Remove Sticky Dough From Your Fingers

Homemade bread, pizza crust, and rolls are a treasure, but they can be messy to make. homemade dough, whether yeasted or not, seems to stick to everything it comes in contact with — including your hands. Try to wash it off with hot water and you might as well have rubbed super glue on them. Fortunately, there's a trick that home bakers and professional chefs alike have used for ages. If you're looking for a way to get rid of sticky fingers without creating a paste-like mess, break out the flour and do a flour wash.

Take a handful of flour — the excess flour you dusted on your countertop works here if you're looking to avoid waste — and rub your hands together until the dough forms into small clumps. The dry ingredient soaks up the moisture while the friction will cause the dough to cling to itself instead of your fingers. Once the worst of the sticky dough is gone, wash your hands with soap and cold water and you are ready to make the next turn in your perfect loaf of sourdough bread. Hot water will activate the gluten in the flour and create the glue-like consistency we're trying to avoid.

You can also use cornmeal to perform this culinary trick. Its slightly grittier texture will actually make it more effective than flour alone. So if you're making pizza and dusting the hot stone with cornflour, save a little to clean your hands before you whip up your favorite homemade pizza sauce.

Tips for using the flour wash method

Beyond the benefit of having hands free of sticky dough, this hack also saves your pipes. Bread dough washed down the drain may not seem like a big deal until it is. When it is in its pasty-dough phase it can stick to the pipes, mess with your garbage disposal, and even expand once down the drain, causing a minor clog. To guarantee the safety of your drains with the flour wash method, use it over a garbage can or compost bin. (Some experts recommend you keep fats and oils out of your compost, so if your recipe calls for oil or butter in the dough you might want to stick with the trash can.)

To ensure your hands don't get too sticky with dough in the first place, try kneading with wet hands or kneading long enough that the dough comes cleanly off your hands. Still, some dough on your hands is inevitable. To minimize the amount you lose in the garbage can, start the hand-cleaning process with everyone's favorite kitchen gadget — the bench scraper — to knock the bulk of the dough back into the bowl. Then a quick rub of the hands with some of the flour left on the counter, and you're ready to wash off the rest.