Next, shape the dough into a ball and let it rest, covered in plastic wrap or an inverted bowl, for about 10-15 minutes before proceeding. This will relax the gluten and the dough's elasticity, making it easier to roll out the dough and shape the knots.
Resting the dough gives the gluten structure a chance to loosen and unwind, and it will give you a better final product.
Keep the bread dough covered to protect the dough from drying out and keep off dust. Place your rising dough in a warm, draft-free place in the kitchen while it's rising. Too much heat will speed up the yeast activity, and too much cold air will slow it down.
Covering your dough with a plastic bag will stop it from drying out and delivers great results no matter how your fridge functions. But if for any reason you want to proof your dough uncovered, make sure your fridge doesn't get too dry and there aren't any fans circulating air which could cause the dough to dry out.
Covering your dough correctly is a crucial step here. For best results, we want a non-porous, tight-fitting cover that will keep the dough from becoming too cool or developing a skin. And a towel doesn't cut it: The porous material allows heat to escape, causing the dough to lose temperature.
If yeasted dough isn't allowed to proof, the yeast can't release carbon dioxide, and the gluten won't stretch to hold the air bubbles. Proofing is an essential part of bread baking and other applications that rely on yeast to create air pockets, such as making croissants.
Dough needs to be covered during the proof, but if there's a hole in your plastic wrap or you use a cloth that doesn't create a tight seal, air exposure will cause the top of your dough to become crusty and tough. Varying air temperatures can also contribute to inconsistent or incomplete proofing.
Covering the dough will create a warm moist atmosphere for the dough to rise nicely in. If it's cold or dry the dough won't rise as well as it should. What is this? So covering the dough while it rises keeps the moisture IN and the drying air out.
Once dough is shaped, it needs to rise (be proofed) for a final time. It should be transferred to the pan it will be baked in or on (most often a loaf pan or baking sheet) first. As with previous rises, cover dough with lightly oiled plastic wrap and let it rise in a warm, moist environment.
Step 1: Perform the fingertip test to make sure your dough is overproofed. The test involves gently pressing your finger into the surface of the dough for 2 seconds and then seeing how quickly it springs back. The dent you make will be permanent if the dough is overproofed.
Next, shape the dough into a ball and let it rest, covered in plastic wrap or an inverted bowl, for about 10-15 minutes before proceeding. This will relax the gluten and the dough's elasticity, making it easier to roll out the dough and shape the knots.
“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.
Allowing the bread dough to rise for too long can ruin the texture and the taste of the bread. Both of these things are important when you want your bread to turn out right. The dough ferments as it continues to rise. If this process goes on for too long, you could wind up with bread that has a sour taste.
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.
Most recipes call for the bread to double in size – this can take one to three hours, depending on the temperature, moisture in the dough, the development of the gluten, and the ingredients used.
If the dough doesn't spring back at all, you've likely over-proofed the dough. When the dough rises too much before it gets baked, it will collapse, rather than rise, in the oven's heat, and the crumb will be uneven and ragged.
Knead it two to three times before forming your desired shape or placing it into a bread pan.
Bread rises because yeast eats sugar and burps carbon dioxide, which gets trapped by the bread's gluten. The more sugar your yeast eats, the more gas that gets formed, and the higher the bread rises!
Kneading bread dough allows the protein molecules in the flour to form, creating healthy gluten strands. Gluten is what helps the mixture create gas, which helps it rise and build texture.
The goal is to keep the surface of the bread from drying out. A wet towel works fine but plastic wrap is cheaper and easier than constantly cleaning wet towels. I have used both methods and haven't noticed a difference in the bread produced.
Summary. The standard time dough can be left out for is 4 hours. But this can change depending on the ingredients used and the baking methods used. The use of science to study the bacteria growth generated during the baking process should be acknowledged.
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.