Pastry or Pasta Board

[weinoo]

I recently received a pasta/pastry board via mail-order...

and I was wondering how you care for yours?

So far, I've only used it for kneading sourdough bread dough, and

without a generous dusting of flour, I have a fair amount of trouble keeping

the dough from sticking to the board. And I have a few questions:

Do these boards need to be oiled, same as I do for my cutting board? I haven't.

Does the board develop a sort of "seasoning" (made out of flour and water),

much like a cast-iron pan?

How much digging and scraping is done to clean the board of the old crud?

I've been using a metal bench scraper to clean, but haven't really been scraping

it down to the wood, if you know what I mean.

Any tips will be much appreciated.

[Sera F]

I recently received a pasta/pastry board via mail-order...

and I was wondering how you care for yours?

So far, I've only used it for kneading sourdough bread dough, and

without a generous dusting of flour, I have a fair amount of trouble keeping

the dough from sticking to the board.  And I have a few questions:

Do these boards need to be oiled, same as I do for my cutting board? I haven't.

Does the board develop a sort of "seasoning" (made out of flour and water),

much like a cast-iron pan?

How much digging and scraping is done to clean the board of the old crud?

I've been using a metal bench scraper to clean, but haven't really been scraping

it down to the wood, if you know what I mean.

Any tips will be much appreciated.

←

having used wood bench tables for pastry in culinary school, we scubbed with hot soapy water, scrapped it with a bench scrapper, and then sanitized it and scrapped it again.

but if you are planning on using this strictly for pasta/pastry and don't intend to put any other ingredients on the board(like using as a cutting board), just scrape off all the flour/doughy bits so it's clean and smooth, it takes quite a bit of energy to actually take wood off; and keep it dry. if you get it too wet, it will start to crack more easily than if you don't get it wet at all. with that being said, using dough/pastry on it is perfectly acceptable

as for oil, i'm not sure what to use that is food safe, but won't gum up.

it is a beautiful board though...I hope this helps

[jumanggy]

Nice! I would think a food-grade mineral oil would be the solution (similar to the ones you'd use on a beautiful wooden cutting board), but that's just a guess-- for all I know just scrubbing is enough

[weinoo]

I'm just wondering if treating it with the same oil I use on my cutting board wont make the doughs I'm working on stick even more?

[jumanggy]

Hmm, thinking about it, it might. Sorry-- I actually have a similar problem figuring out how to treat my natural wooden rolling pin. I get concerned if any microscopic butter or eggy-dough residue might turn rancid. So far, I just flour really well--no problems.

(I hope someone with more expertise answers soon

[tino27]

The workstation I use at home is a wood cutting board and I use it both for chopping veggies as well as kneading bread doughs (and making pasta). I also keep the board cleaned and oiled and I've never come across any problems with gumminess or stickiness. The only problem I can imagine you'd have is if you tried to do something on the board right after you oiled it, before the wood had a chance to fully soak in the oil.

Nice looking board, by the way!

[Beanie]

I have a similar board that I use for only for pastry/pasta. I brush off the flour, scrape off bits of dough with metal bench scraper (taking care to not gouge the wood), and wipe with a damp cloth. When dry, I store it in a plastic bag. I've had it for about two years and there are no signs of cracking. I've also applied oil to the board when kneading dough but I don't apply it to "season" the board.

[K8memphis]

I mean maybe just use more flour on there. Dough will of course stick like crazy to any surface. This seems kind of obvious so I don't mean to be an idiot but maybe something like that? You still have to well flour your surface depending on the stickiness of your dough.

When I flour a board, I invariably wipe it with a damp cloth and then spread my flour-- I make a nice surface on there -- the flour clings to the dampened surface-- always worked for moi.

[andiesenji]

In my mom's bakery and in the bakery school I attended back in the 50s, we oiled the "bench" every day, then scraped it with a bench knife, wiped it with dry cloths and dusted it with flour before transferring dough from the dough trough.

Note the baker's scale. We scaled everything by hand and after a while one got to the point that a chunk of dough could be cut that was exactly the weight required.

There were certain tasks, such as forming boules, or rolls (we rolled all the hard rolls by hand) when a spot on the bench was brushed free of flour and oiled so as to get some traction for forming the rounds.

We used food-grade mineral oil that was in a gallon jug and had a pump on top.

On this same subject, for those who might want to make their own pastry board, I came across this site with detailed instructions that some might find helpful.

Make your own pastry board!

[weinoo]

Wow, cool pics, andiesenji...and thanks for all of the responses.

I've oiled my board a couple of times now, and it certainly has made my bread kneading easier...so thanks to all for that tip.