I use a bamboo cutting board for my bread making.

Mine is maple, but is flat. Bench scraper works fine.

If you have absolutely no woodworking skill, the linked board would be fine. Adding the lips yourself wouldn't be a big deal, though laminating the boards isn't for newbies. Still, it seems a bit pricey, especially if you're paying for shipping, but birch is pretty hard.

I think the lips are just to part you from your money, however. I've used similar and wasn't thrilled. If you're rolling and pushing to the back, are you going to run into the dam? Maybe not if you have a short reach. I usually have my board a couple inches in from the counter. In the front, the loose flour will be all over your feet.

Most importantly, with a lip, you can't turn your board. I'd hate that. You can keep a flat board from sliding by putting a silpat under it, but I've rarely had to.

I think the lipped board is most useful in a very small kitchen with narrow counters, where there is only exactly that much space to work on.

Another alternative: Plastic bench scraper. :)

I use a plastic dough scraper made by Ateco on my marble, softer than quartz, counter. Works so well. I do not use my metal scraper much any more. I have been told that quartz is pretty tough.

I had to look up quartz and it appears that it is less likely than granite to be damaged. I make lots of bread and I use a metal scraper directly on our granite without ever seeing any damage (it does have a slightly beveled edge). I think that you don't have to worry about damaging the quartz. However, I suppose that you might find being able to rotate a surface to be convenient.

And stone is cold.....candy and pie crust likes cold...but warm yeasty dough prefers warm.

I use a silicone non-stick mat for managing dough.

I have a set ($5 for 5 small to large?) of plastic Drywall spackling blades from HomeDepot for scraping and cutting dough.

dcarch

I have a built in "baking center", which is just the right height for me to roll dough, mix batter, cut vegetables. It has a 1.5 inch thick butcherblock top and if it gets messed up I jut go over it with a palm sander and re-oil. I love it. It's not as cool as marble or other stone, but I roll pie crust and cut-out cookies on it and it works just fine. I scrape with my bench scraper and it cleans right up.

Annie

"---- It's not as cool as marble or other stone, ---"

Actually that is not possible. Wood and stone are both at the exact same temperature, that is, room temperature.

Try measuring them.

BTW, beautiful kitchen.

dcarch

A plastic scraper would save you a lot of money !

Thanks to everyone for all this great input.

We have a sample piece of our quartz countertop that we just tested and it doesn't seem to scratch, but if there are microscopic scratches, it would only be visible over time. I think I will make this the subject of another question in order to get input from breadbakers with quartz countertops.

But some replies brought up another question: how do plastic bench scrapers compare to metal? Are they as effective?

If you are using the scraper to get your board...or counter, clean clean!! then a plastic one won't be as efficient. Get what you can with a plastic scraper and clean up the rest with a nylon scrubber....but a quartz counter seems cold for a warm yeast dough.

@dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m It's true that both materials are the same temperature, but they conduct heat differently so a stone counter will cool the dough faster than wood because it's a better conductor of heat. I'm not an expert but this is how I understand it!

arlo48, you are basically correct.

When the stone is at room temperature, say 75F, and your hands are at 96F, of course you feel the stone is cold, but if the dough is at 40F from the refrigerator and the stone is 75F, then to the dough the stone is very hot and the stone will warm up the dough, not cooling it.

dcarch.

Thanks, dcarch, I do like my kitchen, and love those double ovens, they're my favorite feature in the entire house!

I didn't mean "cool" as in temperature, I meant "cool" as in fashionable or popular. It seems everyone has granite or quartz, but I wanted butcher block, I just like wood. It's beautiful and functional and it was far less expensive than stone, so Elery was happy when I told him what I wanted, LOL.

I will admit that about 6 months after we put in that island, which we built ourselves, I found some river-rock-in-clear-acrylic kind of countertop and told Elery it was a good thing the kitchen was finished or I'd have cut corners somewhere else and had that countertop...

Anyway, I do everything on that wood butcher block, from chopping vegetables to rolling dough to cutting biscuits and it works fine. I scrape it with a metal scraper, I've never tried a plastic one.

Annie

There are two kinds of plastic dough scrapers--the flexible bevelled type with the rounded edge for scraping bowls and the stiff thin ones with blunt edges that look like bench scrapers. They're not as thin, so slightly less efficient, but for gathering dough they're fine.

I use a pastry cloth, silpat or board always, and use the plastic ones on the cloth and silpat.

getting back to the "physics" example (sorry to "knead" it to death :-), if the dough was at 100 degrees, say rising in the oven, and the counter was at 75 degrees, then the counter would cool down the dough. point being that arlo48 didn't specify a temp, but I'm guessing that this is the situation she was most likely referring to.

Granite is a "heat sink"...it absorbs heat quickly and distributes it quickly throughout it's mass. that's why it's good for rolling out pie crust but not so good for kneading bread. You want the "warm" to stay in the dough but you want it to go out of the candy.
Wood and stone absorb heat differently, that's why wood feels warm to the touch and stone feels cold.
Collectors and antiquers often use the feeling of warmth or cool to differentiate very quickly between say things like ivory and resin or porcelain, between plastic and real stone. You will see people going through a flea market and grazing items with their hands.... lots of information, especially between sterling and plate.

I knead bread and pizza dough on my granite countertop and have not noticed much difference from kneading on the wooden bread board except for one aspect - flouring the surface is much nicer when you are doing it on wood. The flour gets dusted more evenly than on granite.

"-------I knead bread and pizza dough on my granite countertop and have not noticed much difference from kneading on the wooden bread board -----"

While there are differences between stone and wood thermal conductivity, the effect probably is not significant because dough is a relatively poor thermal conductor. As I remember, Stone is about twice that of wood, but aluminum is 100 times better than stone. BTW end grain wood board conducts 2x better than wood parallel gain board.

Your hands, at about 98F, will have significantly more impact to the temperature of dough because your body maintains that 98F, and the frequent kneading contact with the dough promotes conductivity.

dcarch

Also the friction created in the dough by kneading raises the temperature of the dough.
When dough is kneaded by the stretch and fold method, there is minimal contact with the mass of dough.

My hands just now are at their warmest--unusually warm as in they feel hot to me (from eating and kitchen cleanup)--and by my infrared thermometer are about 83° F. The meat thermometer in the drawer is at 80°. My guess is that the drawer one hasn't come down yet since the kitchen was warmer during the day. It was very hot out today but the air conditioner was on so it didn't get above 80° in there. The
thermostat just outside the kitchen door, where it is noticeably cooler,
says 76°. The soapstone island is 73.5° right over the u/c fridge, according to the infrared, and the tile perimeter is 77°. The rear of the soapstone above the cable box and the waste heat from the fridge, though directly under the a/c vent, is 81.5°. The side nearer the windows is 77° and the side on the interior is 75.5° It's a small island. I think the long way, windows to interior, is 5'. The tile feels like ambient, so I'm guessing it's currently about 77° air temperature in there.

Make of all that what you will.

I always use a board for yeast breads. I roll pie crusts on the cold spot over the fridge on a silpat. I never thought of it being cooler there. Over the Summer I learned to chill everything, including silpat, rolling pin, pie plate and all ingredients (e.g., flour and salt) to counter the slumpy mess that Summer heat can bring on. The cool spot isn't pie cool. :)