This site uses only a few technical cookies necessary for its operation. By continuing to browse, you accept their use.
To find out more...
To find out more...
Divide and weigh dough into regular pieces
When you prepare dough for cupcakes in a pastry shop or bakery, at some point you're going to have to divide it, i.e. cut it into small pieces, which should all have the same weight.
Sounds simple enough, but is it really that simple?
Sounds simple enough, but is it really that simple?
12 K 5/5 (14 reviews)
Keywords for this post:BakingPastryDoughWeighingDividingTipsRegularityLast modified on: May 30th 2023
Divide and weigh dough into regular pieces
The most natural way to do this is to place the pile of dough in front of you.
Then take enough dough from it to obtain the desired weight.
It's simple, and it works, of course, but without realizing it you're wasting a lot of time, because you'll have to make the right weight from scratch for each dough piece.
To do this, you first need to roll out the dough roughly on your work surface, pressing it down with your hands, and at the same time giving it a vague square or roughly flat rectangle shape, about 1 to 3 cm thick.
Using a pastry cutter, cut out "columns" from the rectangle...
... which you can then cut into pieces.
Weigh each piece to check its weight, adjust if necessary by removing or adding a small piece of dough, then set it aside before moving on to the next.
You'll find that, at first, the pieces you cut won't be the right weight, but as time goes by, your eye will adjust to the desired weight, and you'll need to adjust the weight less and less.
This way of working (in "columns" and "rows") will enable you to divide the dough more quickly and easily.
It's not essential, but once you've got a piece at the right weight, lay it out in rows and columns too (as in the photo), so you'll know how much you've got at a glance.
To sum up: to divide a dough into several small pieces of the same weight, it's much easier and quicker to form it into a rectangle or square, and cut rows and columns from this rectangle.
Then take enough dough from it to obtain the desired weight.
It's simple, and it works, of course, but without realizing it you're wasting a lot of time, because you'll have to make the right weight from scratch for each dough piece.
Can you do better?
Yes, and to do that you have to work like bakers do, i.e. cut the dough into squares.To do this, you first need to roll out the dough roughly on your work surface, pressing it down with your hands, and at the same time giving it a vague square or roughly flat rectangle shape, about 1 to 3 cm thick.
Using a pastry cutter, cut out "columns" from the rectangle...
... which you can then cut into pieces.
Weigh each piece to check its weight, adjust if necessary by removing or adding a small piece of dough, then set it aside before moving on to the next.
You'll find that, at first, the pieces you cut won't be the right weight, but as time goes by, your eye will adjust to the desired weight, and you'll need to adjust the weight less and less.
This way of working (in "columns" and "rows") will enable you to divide the dough more quickly and easily.
It's not essential, but once you've got a piece at the right weight, lay it out in rows and columns too (as in the photo), so you'll know how much you've got at a glance.
To sum up: to divide a dough into several small pieces of the same weight, it's much easier and quicker to form it into a rectangle or square, and cut rows and columns from this rectangle.
Lasts posts
Butter vs. grease
We often read in a recipe where a pastry is put into a mould that, just before pouring, the mould should be buttered or greased. But what's the difference between these 2 terms?December 1st 20251,8455
Getting out of the fridge early
Very often when you're cooking, you need to take food or preparations out of the fridge, to use them in the recipe in progress. There's nothing tricky about this: you just take them out of the fridge and use them, usually immediately, in the recipe. But is this really a good method?November 24th 20251,3555
Who's making the croissants?
When you look at a bakery from the outside, you naturally think that in the bakery, the bakers make the bread, and in the laboratory, the pastry chefs make the cakes. It's very often like that, with each of these professions having quite different ways of working, but sometimes there's also one...November 23th 20251,253
Oven height
When we put a dish or cake in the oven, we naturally tend to put it on the middle shelf, and that's what we usually do. But in some cases, this position and height can be a little tricky, so let's find out why.October 8th 20253,7455
The importance of sieving
In recipes that use a fine powder (flour, powdered sugar, etc.), you'll often see the advice to sift before using it. To sift is to pass the powder in question through a sieve (a very fine strainer) before incorporating it into your recipe. It's often advice, but is it really useful?September 3rd 20258,2193
Other pages you may also like
Butter doesn't make you fat, unless you eat too much of it.
Whenever I'm discussing cooking and recipes, there is one idea which comes up frequently, like this: "Oh no! But that's got butter in it" (I should add, for the sake of accuracy, that this is something I hear more frequently from women, who are almost all concerned with keeping their figure). ...March 26th 201245 K4.5
Candied fruits: don't get ripped off
Do you like candied fruit? You might like to nibble a handful or add it to a recipe, like a classic fruit cake or delicious Italian specialities like panettone or sicilian epiphany pie.June 21th 201768 K 24.2
The baker always gild twice
I've already told you about gilding, the beaten whole egg that is spread with a brush on anything that needs to brown in the oven: puff pastry, pastries, etc. and that professionals use a lot, I'm going to come back to this to clarify a bit how to do it, and give you a professional tip.June 9th 201935 K4.2
Cooking time for pasta
What is as good and simple as pasta? Not much, I think, and it's so easy to prepare: boiling water, salted (or not, depending on your taste), a few minutes of boiling and it's ready. The only "difficulty", so to speak, is the respect of the cooking time and the risk of, unfortunately, overcooking...July 18th 201924 K4.6
The dissociation of a preparation
It may have already happened to you: You prepare a sauce, a cream, a ganache etc. and then suddenly or almost, the whole thing dissociates, and from a smooth mixture that you were preparing with love, you end up with a horrible thing with a more or less solid part and another liquid part. It's...January 22th 202213 K4.9
Post a comment or question
Follow this page
If you are interested in this page, you can "follow" it, by entering your email address here. You will then receive a notification immediately each time the page is modified or a new comment is added. Please note that you will need to confirm this following.
Note: We'll never share your e-mail address with anyone else.
Alternatively: you can subscribe to the mailing list of cooling-ez.com , you will receive a e-mail for each new recipe published on the site.