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Author Topic: How to Roll and Store Gingerbread Dough in a Zip-Lock Bag  (Read 5248 times)

Offline GingerbreadExchange

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How to Roll and Store Gingerbread Dough in a Zip-Lock Bag
« on: September 28, 2014, 12:12:27 pm »
Rolling and storing gingerbread dough in a zip-lock bag is a great way to prepare and store several batches of gingerbread dough, allowing for plenty of gingerbread dough when cutting out pieces.

This method that was mentioned by Nancy Rekowski from the Ultimate Gingerbread Yahoo e-mail group, and is her secret to avoid those bubbles and makes rolling and cutting large pieces easier.



After mixing the dough form one or two large balls of dough from the recipe (a recipe with 3-4 cups of flour makes one ball, a recipe with 7 cups of flour makes two balls).





Put one ball each into a one gallon zip lock bag.



Close the bag but leave an inch air escape hole. Then take your rolling pin to distribute the dough evenly to all corners of the bag. You'll end up with a perfectly square and level piece of dough.



Zip the bag the final inch then refrigerate until slightly firm. Store the bag(s) of dough in the refrigerator until needed.






When you want to use dough that's been chilled hours to days, bring to 'near' room temp before rolling.  Cut the bag so you can flop it over onto the rolling surface.  Depending on thickness needed, use entire bag of dough, or cut in half (as shown in pix).







Roll dough to desired thickness and cut gingerbread pieces.

Dough that is rolled to thick also has a tendency to bubble. Many think that thicker is stronger but that's not always the case. Properly dried dough is stronger than thicker dough. Often thicker rolled dough holds moisture and unable to dry properly.

Here's a tip to dry your dough rock hard (without burning the edges); After baking using suggested baking time and temp, cool your pieces. Then heat your oven to 350, when it reaches 350, turn the oven off and return your baked pieces to the oven and then just walk away until the oven has cooled. You can repeat this step if needed.

I found this method of rolling out dough to be WONDERFUL!  It allowed me to make all of my dough in advance and then clean up the mess.  I made 6 batches of dough and only used 4 for my current project.  It was nice to be able to simply pull out another bag of dough when I was cutting out pieces, rather than having to stop and make more dough.
« Last Edit: January 21, 2020, 03:50:13 pm by GingerbreadExchange »
Loreta Wilson
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Offline Bgreenwood

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Re: How to Roll and Store Gingerbread Dough in a Zip-Lock Bag
« Reply #1 on: October 30, 2014, 01:51:59 pm »
How thick do you recommend rolling out dough for large gingerbread structure like Heidi's Haunted House?

Offline GingerbreadExchange

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Re: How to Roll and Store Gingerbread Dough in a Zip-Lock Bag
« Reply #2 on: October 30, 2014, 04:01:03 pm »
Everybody seems to have their own preference depending on location (humidity), decorations to be applied, decorating style, if structure needs to be moved, etc. 

I think I roll my dough thinner than most people, but... since I live in the rainy Pacific NW, I cover all my walls with another layer of Royal Icing and sometimes, like I did for Heidi's Haunted House, I applied graham crackers to the wall with Royal Icing, which added another layer of strength. 

Dough thickness is a very common question, and it really depends on the structure, location (ie, humidity), and personal preference.
Loreta Wilson
Exceeding your gingerbread expectations in a sweet way

Offline HBAppleton

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Re: How to Roll and Store Gingerbread Dough in a Zip-Lock Bag
« Reply #3 on: November 07, 2014, 01:40:28 pm »
Live in south... I laid two wooden yard sticks - flat side down - on either side of my dough and rolled it to that thickness using a dowel..

I prefer thinner myself and double baked

Never had an issue with moisture and had some houses as long as 4 to 5 years -- storage was separate issue

 

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