Debating if that $400 dough sheeter was worth it

I spent $400 on a countertop dough sheeter 6 months ago and it saves me about 2 hours of rolling croissants every weekend. But now I'm worried I'm losing that hand feel for dough tension that you only get from rolling by hand. Any other bakers gone automated and regretted it or feel the same?

2 comments

2 Comments

parker54316d ago

Respect the worry about losing hand feel but I don't buy it. You're saving two hours a week that you can spend practicing other parts of your bake that actually need the touch. That hand feel transfers fine once you're making the dough and shaping the final pieces anyway.

richard11015d ago

Yeah you're overthinking it a bit. That hand feel thing mostly comes from mixing and folding anyway, not from rolling out each sheet. I've been using an automatic dough sheeter for about two years now and my lamination actually got better once I stopped fighting with uneven hand-rolled layers. The time you save is huge, use it to dial in your butter consistency or your proofing instead. Nobody ever got better at baking just because they spent more time rolling dough out flat.