cutting sticky cookie dough

I like to make pepparkakor, a Swedish spice cookie. My recipes call for quite a bit of corn syrup and molasses. They also offer 2 options for baking: either form the dough into logs and cut into slices after chilling, or roll the dough out and cut into shapes. Either way I choose, I have misshapen cookies because the dough is so sticky. If I roll it into logs, even after freezing the dough is sticky and somewhat fluid when I cut it. If I roll it out, even though I flour the surface, the rolling pin, and the cookie cutters the dough sticks, again resulting in a misshapen (though tasty) cookie. Any helpful comments are greatly appreciated!

[KyleW]

Maybe using bread (high gluten) flour would help give your dough a little more substance.
If you try it, just be sure not to over work the dough or the cookies are liable to get tough.
Kyle

[mudbug]

Here is a suggestion:

The following recipe recommends you roll out the dough and bake it for a about 15 minutes and THEN use the cookie cutter. Perhaps you could apply this to your recipe.

MORAVIAN COOKIES

5 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling out the dough
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons ground allspice
2 teaspoons ground cloves
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups molasses
1 cup (1/2 pound) dark-brown sugar
1/2 cup (1/4 pound) vegetable shortening, melted and cooled
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1. In a large mixing bowl, sift together 1 cup flour, spices, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the molasses andbrown sugar; beat until well combined. Add the vegetable shortening and butter. On lowspeed, add the dry ingredients, a little at a time, to form a stiff dough.

3. Divide the dough in half. Place each half of dough on a piece of plastic wrap. Shape into arectangle, and chill in the refrigerator overnight.

4. Begin with one half of the dough, and divide the rectangle into quarters. Working on a lightlyfloured baking mat, roll out one of the quarters as thin as possible, until it’s almost translucent,to completely cover the baking mat. Trim the edges, forming the dough into a perfect rectangle.Keep the remaining quarters refrigerated.

5. Heat oven to 325°. Place the rolled-out dough and the baking mat on a pan. Bake for 10minutes, rotate the pan, and continue baking for 4 more minutes. Remove the sheet from theoven, and, using a cookie cutter, quickly stamp out as many as you can before the doughcools. Transfer the stamped-out cookies to a wire rack to cool. If dough becomes too hard tostamp, reheat it in the oven for 45 to 60 seconds, and continue stamping out the cookies.Repeat the process until all cookies have been stamped out of the dough.

Makes about 375 very thin cookies

Also.... after looking at many recipes for pepparkakor, I've found very few that use "both" corn syrup and molasses. My understanging is that corn syrup is used only as a substitute for when molasses is not available for the original recipe.

How about trying a recipe which just uses molasses instead of syrup?

MORAVIAN COOKIES

5 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling out the dough
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons ground allspice
2 teaspoons ground cloves
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups molasses
1 cup (1/2 pound) dark-brown sugar
1/2 cup (1/4 pound) vegetable shortening, melted and cooled
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1. In a large mixing bowl, sift together 1 cup flour, spices, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the molasses andbrown sugar; beat until well combined. Add the vegetable shortening and butter. On lowspeed, add the dry ingredients, a little at a time, to form a stiff dough.

3. Divide the dough in half. Place each half of dough on a piece of plastic wrap. Shape into arectangle, and chill in the refrigerator overnight.

4. Begin with one half of the dough, and divide the rectangle into quarters. Working on a lightlyfloured baking mat, roll out one of the quarters as thin as possible, until it’s almost translucent,to completely cover the baking mat. Trim the edges, forming the dough into a perfect rectangle.Keep the remaining quarters refrigerated.

5. Heat oven to 325°. Place the rolled-out dough and the baking mat on a pan. Bake for 10minutes, rotate the pan, and continue baking for 4 more minutes. Remove the sheet from theoven, and, using a cookie cutter, quickly stamp out as many as you can before the doughcools. Transfer the stamped-out cookies to a wire rack to cool. If dough becomes too hard tostamp, reheat it in the oven for 45 to 60 seconds, and continue stamping out the cookies.Repeat the process until all cookies have been stamped out of the dough.

Makes about 375 very thin cookies

Also.... after looking at many recipes for pepparkakor, I've found very few that use "both" corn syrup and molasses. My understanging is that corn syrup is used only as a substitute for when molasses is not available for the original recipe.

How about trying a recipe which just uses molasses instead of syrup?

Swedish Frosted Pepparkakor

1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup margarine or butter, softened
3 Tbsp molasses
1 egg
2 Tbsp water or milk
3 1/4 cups all-purpose or unbleached flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tsp ground cloves

3/4 cup water
1 envelope (1 tbsp) unflavored gelatin
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp baking powder (not a mistake)
1 tsp vanilla extract

In large bowl, beat sugar, margarine, and molasses until light and fluffy. Add egg and water, blend well. Stir in flour, soda, salt, spices; mix well to form a smooth dough. Cover with plastic wrap; refrigerate 1 hour (minimum) for easier handling.

Heat oven to 350 deg F. On floured surface, roll 1/3 dough at a time to 1/8 inch thickness. Keep remaining dough refrigerated. Cut with floured 2-1/2 inch cutters. Place 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 350 deg F for 9-11 minutes or until set. Immediately remove from cookie sheets and cool completely. Makes 8-10 dozen thin cookies. Traditional Swedish cookie shapes are hearts, gingerbread folks, pigs, horses, or roosters.

NOTE: The dough rolls easily and can be very trying when it's as thin as it should be. Working quickly with small amounts (keeping remainder refrigerated) is helpful. Rolling it on a chilled marble slab was helpful, too.

In 2-quart saucepan, combine 3/4 cup water and gelatin. Let stand 5 minutes to soften gelatin. Stir in 3/4 cup granulated sugar, bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes. Stir in powdered sugar, beat until foamy. (I dumped the gel/sugar mixture into my KA mixing bowl before adding the powdered sugar.) Stir in baking power and vanilla; beat at highest speed until thick, about 10 minutes. Spread frosting on cooled cookies or pipe frosting following outline of cookies. Allow frosting to set for several hours before storing. Ample frosting for outlining 10 dozen cookies.

NOTE: Frosting is similar in consistency to royal icing -- or marshmallow creme. If it becomes difficult to pipe with pastry bag, put the filled bag in the microwave oven for about 10 seconds, squoosh the icing around a bit and keep on going!

from: http://recipes.alastra.com/cookies/pepparkakor.html

For more recipes: click here

[This message has been edited by cchiu (edited 01-19-2001).]

cchiu, your suggestion about baking the dough first, THEN cutting the cookies is quite intriguing, and I think it just might be the best solution (though I hate to "waste" the dough in between the shapes). I posted my recipe on the general baking board under my question on halving a recipe with an odd number of eggs. It makes quite a tasty cookie in spite of the problems I've had; certainly I could use a different recipe that would have only molasses instead of both molasses and corn syrup, but then it would be a different recipe with a different taste. I am going to try making a half recipe in the near future, incorporating your and others' suggestions. Incidentally, I really appreciate your helpful posts--you are a fount of wonderful information.

As per Helen, saying cchiu is a "fount of wonderful information"... I second that motion!

Julie

[mudbug]

Why thank you Helen and ChefJulie, those are kind words for you to say. Helping to find answers for others is a great way to learn!