When I started working with soaked dough recipes, I expected the initial soaked element (flour mixed with an acidic liquid like buttermilk) to be kind of like sourdough starter – loose and soft, and very fermentable. This has not always been the case. Sometimes it ends up being a compact ball resembling something more like a medicine ball – dense and heavy (and kind of shaggy).
Sometimes it really is more like sourdough starter, although still more compact than starter. These mixtures are easier to work with.
I wish more recipes indicated these variants and possible outcomes.
I could have figured that out by the proportions, of course, but flours do vary in their natural moisture level, and I always hoped in the back of my mind that the soaking stage would always result in a loose dough. As I mentioned above, looser dough is also easier to work with.
Sometimes I need to use more elbow grease to manipulate the dough to meet the end that the recipe indicates. While I’m in the midst of it, I imagine a whole generation of women before me that must have had amazing upper body strength from working with these denser doughs.
The good news is that each time the recipe has worked out and yielded something delicious! Great texture, too – not gummy and not tough, but quite tender.
So, if you start working with soaked dough recipes and you find the soaked ball of dough a bit unwieldy, don’t worry – it will all work out in the end.
