Yes. After the first rise, you can knead the dough lightly to remove some gas that causes air bubbles. This step is ideal if you want your dough to be flat and dense or if you want bread with a close crumb, like sourdough. If you prefer sourdough with an open crumb, just knead the dough lightly.
The purpose of kneading is to develop gluten in the dough. Gluten is made of long strands of protein — it makes the dough stretchy, so it can contain the bubbles created by the yeast or sourdough culture, enabling the dough to rise. Therefore, you need to knead before rising.
After the dough has risen (aka proofed), the dough needs some handiwork before a second rise. Once dough has risen to double its size, it must be pressed down or turned to prevent it from overproofing.
An easy way is to hold the dough with one hand and stretch it out over the work surface with the other, then bring it back to a ball and repeat with the other hand. Keep kneading until it has a smooth texture and can be stretched without tearing – this typically takes 10 minutes.
It means to let your dough rest (I give it 25-30 minutes) before kneading. This allows the flour to become thoroughly saturated, and provides time for the gluten chains to start forming up before you even lay a hand on the dough — more pre-kneading. Following that, it's an easy 5 to 7 minutes — that's all!
Roll your dough into a ball and hold it in the air for a few seconds. If the dough remains a ball, it means that the gluten has been worked enough and is durable. If your dough flops between your fingers, it needs to be kneaded more.
Loaves made with over-kneaded dough often end up with a rock-hard crust and a dense, dry interior. Slices will be very crumbly, especially toward the middle.
“If the dough has risen too long, it's going to feel fragile and might even collapse as you poke it,” says Maggie. If this is the case, there's a chance you can save your dough by giving it a quick re-shape. Learn more about this fix in our blog on saving overproofed dough.
The second proving has given the bread more elasticity, and made it harder to deflate the air. Second rises may add significantly to the total time it takes to complete a loaf of bread, but the step can be essential to achieving the taste and texture inherent to a number of popular breads.
Look: Your dough should be about double the size it was when it started. If it's in a bowl covered with plastic wrap, then use a marker to trace an outline of the dough on the plastic — the dough is done rising/proofing when it stretches beyond that mark by about double.
If you want to let you dough proof for longer, try bulk-fermenting it in a cooler place, but don't allow it to go longer than three hours or structure and flavor may be compromised. For the workhorse loaf, a bulk proof of approximately two hours gives us the optimal balance of flavor and texture.
Does Rising Bread Affect Its Texture? For a fluffy bread texture, the key is to let the bread rise long enough.
These gases get trapped inside the dough buy the mesh the gluten makes. This is what causes your bread to be airy and fluffy. This mesh is formed by kneading the dough. If you do not knead a dough enough you do not give your bread a chance as the gluten did not have enough time to build that mesh.
After the first rise, it's important to punch down the dough to prevent it from over-proofing. Overproofed bread is dense and unable to retain the gas bubbles necessary for the structure of the bread loaf. Let the dough rise to double its original size before punching it down.
If you want to use plastic to cover your bread, that's totally fine, but take care not to let it stick to the dough. A good way to prevent the plastic sticking to dough is by oiling it with olive oil, or if you're using a large bag, don't let the bag touch the dough.
You can gently deflate the dough, reshape it, and set it to rise again. Watch it very carefully, as this third rise will go quite quickly and probably won't be as high.
Overproofed is when the dough has rested too long and the yeast has continued making carbon dioxide while the strength of the dough (gluten bonds) have begun to wear out. The dough will look very puffy, but when you touch it or move it you may notice it deflate or sag.
Once you've made your pizza dough, you can place it in the fridge and let it rise overnight for up to 24 hours. Take it out of the fridge 20-30 minutes before you intend on using it to let it come to room temperature. This way, you can make your pizza dough the day before. This is great for entertaining.
If the dough is under proofed, the indentation springs back really fast and does not stay. If the dough is over proofed, the indentation stays, the surface is sticky, and the structure may collapse.
Under Kneading
Instead of rising, the dough will spread out flat. The dough may even fall back onto itself and collapse as the gases produced by the yeast escapes. Once baked, an under-kneaded bread loaf will be flat and dense in texture.
Kneading for 10-12 minutes by hand or 8-10 minutes in a mixer are the general standards; if you've been massaging the dough for that length of time, you can be pretty confident that you've done your job.
Knead it two to three times before forming your desired shape or placing it into a bread pan.
Bread dough should be sticky and wet when you begin kneading it. I encourage everyone in my classes to embrace the stickiness! When water is first added to flour, the flour takes a while to fully absorb it all, making that dough even more sticky.