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Overheard a pastry chef say 'cold hands, warm dough' and it hit me different
I was at a baking workshop last Saturday in Portland, just a small class of maybe 8 people, and this older pastry chef kept saying 'cold hands, warm dough' while showing us how to shape croissants. At first I thought it was just a cute saying (you know, like a mantra), but then she explained how body heat can melt the butter layers before you even get the dough in the oven. I realized I've been ruining my laminated doughs for like 2 years because my hands run hot, especially in summer. She recommended running my wrists under cold water for 30 seconds before handling the dough, and I tried it on my Sunday batch. The lamination came out so much cleaner, no butter leaks, and the layers actually held their shape. Has anyone else found a weird trick like this that fixed a basic technique you thought you had down?
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