Is Dough Dissolve Worth the Bread? I Put It to the Test

Any bread baker will agree: While baking is therapeutic, the cleanup can be stress-inducing. The stubborn dried-on dough, the crusty utensils, the gunky sponge — doing the dishes can easily cancel out the joy of a freshly baked loaf of bread. Friends and baking enthusiasts Alex Gold and Alexis Dalinka were frustrated enough by this conundrum to invent Dough Dissolve, an enzyme-based cleaning product designed to make baking-related cleanup as easy as, well, pie.

But starting at around $26 for a bottle, Dough Dissolve isn’t cheap. Here’s what you need to know to decide whether it’s worth the price tag.

What is Dough Dissolve?

Dough Dissolve is a patent-pending enzyme-based cleaning product formulated to soften and dissolve dough. Its active ingredient is lab-grade amylase, an enzyme found in salivary glands (but also produced by plants and bacteria) that breaks down starches. The Dough Dissolve ingredients also include soap nut powder (from dried berries that have cleansing properties when mixed with water), coco-betaine (a coconut oil–derived cleaning agent), botanicals and glyceryl heptanoate, commonly used as a conditioning agent. The ingredients are biodegradable and certified cruelty-free.

Dough Dissolve comes in an amber-colored glass pump bottle, and the company estimates that one 8-ounce bottle is good for about 50 cleaning sessions.

How To Use Dough Dissolve

The instructions recommend adding two to three pumps of Dough Dissolve to warm water and letting the dishes soak for about 10 minutes. Then, swirl the liquid and scrub as needed. The product is designed to work on mixing bowls, utensils and other equipment and can tackle both fresh dough and dough that’s already dried hard.

My Dough Dissolve Test

I tested Dough Dissolve on the dishes I used while baking scones: a glass mixing bowl covered with sticky dough, a wooden spoon, a gunky pastry cutter and a silicone pastry mat covered with dried-up bits of dough. The cleanser is very thick and rather hard to pump out of the bottle, especially after sitting awhile like mine had. It also, ironically, doesn’t readily dissolve easily in the water so I used my fingers to break it up and swirl it around a little in the mixing bowl.

After 10 minutes, I came back to my dishes. I discovered that even the dried-on clumps of dough rinsed away easily with a few swipes of my dish sponge. Cleaning between the blades of a pastry cutter is always an onerous task, but the dough rinsed clean without having to pry dough from between each blade. Best of all, whereas usually I have to throw away dish sponges after cleaning up my baking messes, my dish sponge rinsed clean. Dough Dissolve may not eradicate big chunks of dough (if these remain, they should be thrown in the trash rather than rinsed down the sink), but it did a great job at liquefying the streaks and crusts of dough on my kitchenware.

I also tested Dough Dissolve on a stainless steel mixing bowl in which I’d let streaks of bread dough sit overnight. I filled the bowl with warm water and swished around three pumps of Dough Dissolve. After 10 minutes, I swirled the water and poured it out. Only a few traces of dough remained, which I was able to scrub off quickly with my sponge.

Can similar results be achieved with regular dish soap? Yes and no. Normally, stubborn dough-crusted bowls and utensils require an overnight soak with hot water and plenty of detergent, followed by some scrubbing before they come clean. Dough Dissolve has an advantage in the time department, since it works in just 10 minutes. Dough Dissolve also can extend the life of your dish sponges, since the enzyme helps break down the slimy dough that clings stubbornly to the sponge. The company also claims that it’s better for plumbing, since the enzyme breaks down dough before it can clog the drain. Dough Dissolve is also safe for septic systems.

The Bottom Line

For a frequent baker, Dough Dissolve is a splurge that may pay off in faster, easier cleanup. It’s an effective product that takes a lot of the frustration out of cleaning dirty baking dishes, and its enzyme formula can prevent damaging plumbing clogs caused by dough. If you bake breads or other dough-based recipes on a weekly basis, Dough Dissolve would be a great investment. But, especially since it tends to dry out when not used frequently, occasional bakers might want to stick to an overnight soak and a little elbow grease.

Why You Should Trust Our Tester

Jessica Harlan, the tester and author of this review, is a cookbook author, food writer, recipe developer and culinary educator. A graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City, Jessica has been writing about food, cooking and kitchen equipment for more than 25 years. She's tested everything from burger presses to peelers to the viral Ninja Creami ice cream makers. She has also written nine cookbooks.

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