How To Fix A Dry Dough – Tips For Kneading Bread

Isn’t it funny when your dough turns out dry and crumbly when kneading it? Well, perhaps not funny, but it is a challenge you’ll have to endure at some point if you make bread regularly!

Arriving at the perfect liquid-to-flour ratio is a challenging skill that recipe books make look easy. But as you’ll learn in this post, there are many reasons for bread dough to turn out dry.

Fortunately, there’s a simple solution to fix a dry dough!

How to fix a dry dough?

Start by adding an extra 1-2% of water. By this, I mean if 50 grams/ml were originally added, add 5-10 grams. Then knead for a minute until absorbed. If you need more, add another 5-10 grams.

Repeat until you’ve formed the cohesive dough you are aiming for.

How to know when dough is too dry?

If you think your dough is too dry, it probably is – but hang on for a few minutes to read this before adding water!

Some bread doughs are intentionally dry and hard. As kneading continues, the dough softens, and a firm yet workable dough is created.

On the other side, many bread doughs require a wetter consistency. So what does too dry and too wet look like? First, you have to be sure you are targeting the correct consistency…

Recipes that require a firm dough:

A stiff consistency means that the dough can be moulded into perfect shapes and goes on to retain its shape as it rises.

Bread recipes where less liquid is required include:

• Soft and crusty rolls
• Challah
• Brioche
• Sweet breads, such as Chelsea and Belgian buns
• Tin bread
• Bloomers

Note that these breads contain a healthy amount of fat (or not quite healthy for health reasons). Fats soften the crumb structure, preventing the bread from being dry.

Recipes that require a wet dough:

Many types of bread that are baked at home require more water. These include:

• Sourdough
• Baguettes
• Campaillou
• Finger (bridge) rolls

Recipes that require a high-hydration dough:

A small group of bread types require a very wet dough. These varieties include:

• Ciabatta
• Foccacia
• Pannetone

The majority of other recipes require a viscosity somewhere in between.

When is a firm dough too firm?

A firm dough will feel dry and incohesive to begin with. Adding water during the early stages of kneading is tempting to make it more luscious, but this can be a mistake.

Adding unnecessary water can lead to it being too wet.

Instead, continue kneading and only add extra water if the texture resembles a dry crumble mixture, feels as hard and heavy as stale bread and is very hard to push together.

Whether you add water during the early stages of kneading or not, if it’s still too dry after 5-10 minutes, you can always add water at this point.

TIP: Extra kneading is required when water is introduced later during kneading.

When to add more water to a medium-hydration dough?

If you want your dough to be softer so it develops longer gluten strands and an open crumb, add water at the earliest moment.

Kneading dough that’s under-hydrated causes damage to the gluten strands. There is also the bassinage technique, which delays a portion of the recipe’s water until the end of kneading to produce a more open crumb.

So it’s always best to add water to a dough as soon as possible.

In the early stages of kneading, I work by the “if there are dry bits and wet bits, we’re ok” rule. By this, I mean if it feels slightly wet, but plenty of dry flour is not incorporated, it should be ok.

Yet, if you see dry flour/flakes not being absorbed into the dough or dough that crumbles instead of stretching, you have a dry dough that needs fixing.

With experience, this consistency becomes easy to understand and correct early if an imbalance exists.

So, when you’re in the early stages of kneading, and the dough feels too firm and dry to be able to bond into a smooth consistency, add some extra water.

When to add more water to a high-hydration dough?

When the dough is supposed to be extra wet, you will want to add more water when the dough feels slightly firm. Wet bread doughs are commonly used when following a double-rise method.

The double-rise method

If you are including a bulk fermentation period and a proofing stage to your bread dough, you are following a double-rise method (see: Can I make bread without rising twice?).

Dough naturally firms during the first rise, and a more robust gluten structure develops. These factors mean that a less rigid structure can be supported, and you can be more liberal with adding water.

Why is your bread dough dry?

Bread dough becomes too dry because there is not enough water. The flour-to-water ratio is incorrect, whether by accident or an untested recipe. Common reasons for this are:

Too much airflow

If you’ve left your dough sitting on a workbench or bowl near an open window, then moisture will be picked up by the current and leave the dough.

Although draughts are unlikely to be the leading cause of dry dough, they will make it drier. Always cover your dough when resting and away from draughts.

There was too much flour

Maybe you read the recipe wrong? Maybe the recipe used a different flour than the one you are using? Or, perhaps you used measuring cups for your ingredients?

To avoid mistakes, try to use recipes written in similar climates to yours, ditch the measuring cups and use scales to weigh your ingredients.

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Using a very-high protein flour

The right type of flour makes a big difference to your dough.

Bread flour has a higher protein content than all-purpose or pastry flour.

Protein absorbs water better than other components of white flour. Therefore, high-protein flour will require more water than lower-protein flour to prevent the dough from turning out dry.

Whole grain flour

Whole wheat and other whole grain flour contain bran and often more protein. These particles are water-soakers, which means your dough will need more water than a white bread recipe.

Bran is also slow to absorb water, so it’s common to notice that whole wheat dough becomes dry after the first rise. 

Seeds and dried ingredients will also soak up water in your dough, so I recommend preparing a soaker to avoid dry dough. An alternative is to autolyse your flour.

Too much sugar/salt

Sugar and salt absorb water, which means there is less available for the dough. High quantities of these ingredients slow yeast activity and lead to a dry dough.

Note: Instead of water, you can add another liquid such as egg, vegetable oil or milk

Burning your mixer

If you are kneading dough using a stand mixer, and you start to smell burning from the motor, or worse still, it trips out, stop! The dough is too firm for the mixer, and you are overloading it!

You’ll need to soften the dough or remove it from the mixer and knead by hand.

NOTE: Gluten soaks up water more than starch, meaning high protein flour requires more water than a lower portein variety.

How to fix a dry pizza dough?

Pizza dough is quite dry dough. Neapolitan pizza dough has a dough hydration of around 63% and uses flour with a reasonably high protein quantity.

If your pizza dough is cracking and the dry bits won’t incorporate into the dough, you’ll want to add more water.

Like with bread dough, if your pizza dough is too dry, add around 1-2% of the weight of the water you initially added and knead until combined. Repeat until the dry flour particles are hydrated.

How to fix dry dough after rising

If your dough has dried out during the rising process, it’s not a disaster!

All you need to do is get a water mister, give the dough a good spray and wait 5-10 minutes for the water to be absorbed.

If you don’t have a water mister, brush on the water with a pastry brush or your fingers.

To learn more, see how to rehydrate dough.

So, how do you fix a dry dough? – Conclusion

All you have to do is add a little bit of water at a time to fix a dry dough. I recommend you note how much water you added to amend the recipe and avoid the guesswork next time you bake. It’s much easier this way!

There is a similar process for fixing wet bread doughs. Follow the link to learn more!

I hope you’ve found this post helpful. Let me know in the comments below how this technique works for you!