Super moist and sticky bread dough can be especially challenging cook by hand. It sticks to everything – your bench, your tools, your hands – causing a mess and a lot of frustration. So when I recently learned about the chop-and-plop method for cooking high-moisture dough in a class taught by my colleagues at our Baking schoolI was immediately intrigued.
What is the chop-and-plop method?
The proper French name for this technique of boiling the dough is passage en tête, but bakery kitchens in the United States often refer to it as chop-and-plop. This method involves tearing off a small portion of the wet dough, then placing the shredded dough back on top of the larger portion – like a head (or tête in French). The process is repeated several times, gradually resulting in more cohesive, less sticky dough with added texture.
Photography by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Kaitlin Wayne
Photography by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Kaitlin Wayne
Why does it work?
Let's review some bread bases. In almost all common bread baking, the dough is formed by combining flour and water (along with yeast and salt). Flour contains two specific proteins (glutenin and gliadin) that, when stirred in the presence of liquid, form gluten. Elasticity from glutenin and stretch from gliadin enable the formation of gluten strands in bread dough. These threads form a matrix, which holds the gas produced by the yeast and beneficial bacteria in the dough, allowing growth before and during baking.
With that in mind, you may be confused (as I was) about how the chop-and-plop method works. If the goal is to build strong gluten bonds in the bread dough, why on earth would I purposely tear my dough into pieces, potentially severing those bonds? The school's top baking instructor, Jessica Meyers, has the answer: “By cutting the dough, the gluten matrix will actually fuse together into a stronger web.” In other words, cutting the gluten strands counterintuitively supports stronger gluten development, taking wet dough from pale to silky without traditional kneading.
This method allows you to work with sticky dough without adding extra flour during baking (which can make your bread denser). It also allows the flour already in the dough to be fully hydrated as no new flour is added during cooking which would compete for the available moisture in the dough. Since gluten forms in the presence of liquid, this complete hydration helps the gluten matrix form and dissolve more easily. And, perhaps best of all, it's an easy way to work with wet dough, one that won't lead to sticky dough all over your bench and hands.
Photography by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Kaitlin Wayne
How to do it
Starting with your large dough on a work surface, use your paring knife to cut a small piece. (Let's say 2″ x 2″ if your dough measures approximately 8″ x 8″.) Place that small piece of dough on top of the larger blob. Repeat, piling the shredded pieces on top as you go. As you continue with the process, the gluten will begin to develop and the dough will become tighter and harder to break. It has begun to transform from an amorphous blob into a dough that has tension, structure and strength. And a firm dough translates into a loaf that will rise higher when baked.
The whole process only takes a few minutes of cutting and shredding. As the forced rearrangement of the gluten matrix in the dough creates tension and resistance, a loose, shapeless dough turns into a more tightly formed mass that will rise well when baked. The dough will begin to resist the cutting process, indicating the formation of a strong gluten matrix, and it is this indicator that lets you know when you have done enough chopping and shredding and can move on to the next step in your recipe.
When is the chop-and-plop method useful?
The chop-and-plop method is most useful when working with it high hydration dough. Doughs are generally considered to have high hydration when the percentage of liquid to flour in a recipe is around 80% or higher. Get this ciabatta recipe as an example; its hydration is 79.5% (close enough to qualify). As expected, the dough is wet and sticky, so the recipe involves 7 minutes of beating in a mixer to achieve a soft and elastic dough. The same result can be achieved using the chop-and-plop method, which is a great solution if you don't own a mixer. The only tool you need is one paring knife.
Parlor knife
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our panini bread the recipe is another example where the chop-and-plop method comes in handy. With up to 96% hydration, the dough has almost as much liquid as flour, creating an extremely moist and sticky dough. It's so sticky, in fact, that we specifically recommend using a mixer. If you don't have one or just want the tactile experience of making bread by hand, the slice-and-plop would replace the kneading step. It is a useful method to keep the dough soft and moist in one place without a bowl.
Whether you're making one of these recipes or another high-moisture bread, try the Cros-and-plop method next time you bake. You might just adopt it as your new favorite technique for kneading that super moist dough.
Not sure how to calculate the hydration of your dough? Check out this helpful blog post.
Cover photo by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Kaitlin Wayne.
