Overproofed dough, especially if it is just the first or second rise, can always be knocked down and given another rise. If your dough has become so overproofed that it cannot hold any tension, it is nearly impossible to salvage it and turn it into a light and fluffy loaf.
The best way to describe it is like liquid magic sand. We salvaged the sourdough by adding a little extra flour and water until it was able to hold its shape. It was a bit dense and ugly, but it was delicious with butter. Please note here as well, that sourdough is another thing altogether for rising stages. It is not nearly as robust as commercially yeasted dough. The second rise is not very forgiving.
Dough made from commercial yeast on the other hand, is more than fine with being knocked down a third time, and if you absolutely have to a fourth time.
The loaf ended up being a 60 percent hydration dough using grams of flour and 1 grams active dry yeast. I fully expected the rise period after four attempts to be much longer. Even a two hour rise on the seventh attempt was much shorter than I was expecting. Additionally, the finished loaf had much better texture than I anticipated and even a bit more oven spring. I certainly was anticipating a much more dense loaf of bread than we ended up with.
The major downfall here was the taste. It was not palatable, and trust me we are not picky eaters in this house. In this case, on rise number seven, the dough failed to reach the volume of rise number six. It might be more dense than desired, but depending on conditions, you might see no difference at all. I recently fell in love with the art of the croissant, or more honestly, I fell in love with the taste of the homemade croissant.
You might just have a deflated bread with very coarse texture. Timing it can be tricky because proving can take as little as 30 minutes for quick-yeast breads, or as long as a few hours for sourdough breads. Use the tip or the pad of your finger and make gently poke to make an indentation on the side of the bread dough. If unsure, err on the side of underproving — the bread will rise some more in the oven anyway. When it comes to proving bread, warmer is not necessarily better.
Professional bakers often use proving boxes or cabinets for this process, but did you know you can fashion your own proving drawer? Half-fill the roasting tray with boiling water and close the oven door. The hot water will provide a warm and moist environment necessary for the yeast to leaven the dough. Sign up to our newsletter to get more articles like this delivered straight to your inbox.
In need of some positivity? By first stretching and layering our gluten, we help our dough more effectively hold water and air. As we trap more air in our dough during these motions, folding also helps to establish a more open crumb structure in our baked loaves. Secondly, folding dough redistributes our yeast and its food, making sure each little Cookie Monster gets its fill.
Also, folding dough helps to regulate its temperature, keeping it consistent through its mass. Together, these two consequences of folding regulate yeast activity, and help our dough stay on schedule. To perform a fold, start by wetting your dough spatula and hands with water. Then, gently scrape around the edges of the bowl to prevent sticking, and make a clean fold possible.
Without tugging, pull the side farthest from you up and towards you, and fold your dough in half. Give the bowl a quarter turn, then perform the same motion again. Give the bowl a half turn, and repeat the same motion. Lastly, pull the unfolded side of your dough carefully up from the bottom, and pull it up and over to form a neat package, like so. All the while, allow the dough to stretch itself—your hands are just assistants. Performing these motions too aggressively may tear the gluten, making the process counter-productive.
The dough should now feel taught but pillowy, and have a spring to the touch. Also, you'll notice that the dough is far less sticky than before, mostly because gluten is AMAZING, and does all sorts of useful things with water and air. Re-cover the bowl and have a cocktail. Our second fold will be performed about half an hour later, when the creases from our first fold have melded together, showing us that our gluten network has relaxed and is ready to be re-stretched.
With this second fold we want to be very careful not to push too hard on our dough, or we might de-gas it and undo a lot of the work done by the yeast and ourselves thus far. Don't shake the baby—every bit of gas counts. In the event you do squash your dough a bit, don't worry about it too much. Just be extra careful during shaping to treat your dough gently. These things take practice. You will still have delicious bread.
Re-re-cover the bowl and have another beer, or two, cause it will be most of an hour before we disturb our dough again. Check your dough after another 45 minutes or so. Wet your hand and gently push on the dough surface. Feels dense? Go watch the Daily Show, and come back in a half hour. More rising time is just fine so long as we don't just up and forget about it.
Feels really dense? Move it to a warmer part of your kitchen. The dough should feel like a waterbed, pillowy and with some spring, but your finger should leave a slight imprint. Is it there yet? You're ready to divide the dough, which is the first step towards shaping your very own loaves.
To divide the dough, lightly flour the top with AP flour, scrape around the sides with your dough spatula to free it from the bowl and quickly flip the bowl upside down. The dough should flop out in one large blob, and what was at the bottom of the bowl should now be on top.
It'll also be really sticky. This is good, like so:. Lightly flour your hands, bench knife, and the counter top on which you will be shaping. With your bench scraper, decisively cut the dough in half, pushing the halves away from each other with the bench knife, making sure to keep the bench knife's blade firmly flush with your counter's surface.
Pre-shaping is all about giving your dough a heads-up about what shape it's going to be later, and giving the gluten a little time to get situated. Think of it as a dress-rehearsal for the big show. For us, our final shape is going to be round—a boule—and so our pre-shape is going to be round as well.
To pre-shape, we're going to perform a series of folds similar to what we did during the bulk rise. We want to do this in as few motions as possible, making those motions decisive and clean, without being aggressive. It'll look something like this:. Once you've folded your dough into a neat little package, gently flip it over with your bench knife to let the smooth side face you. For the moment this is the top of our loaf-to-be.
The place where the different sides of the dough meet and meld is our seam, which should end up on the bottom. Like this:. Most important here, is to not over-think this. Just try to get some tension on the surface of the loaf. If we mess with it too much now we're just going to push our hard-earned gas out of it. Pre-shapes—like rehearsals—aren't meant to be perfect. Lightly flour the tops of the rounds and cover with a towel.
Allow the pre-shaped loaves to hang out on the bench for a while—anywhere between fifteen and forty minutes will do the trick. By letting the tension we built during our pre-shape relax, we'll be able to create even more tension during our final shape, all without tearing the surface of the loaf.
This helps make big, beautiful bread. This is our bench rest. While this is happening, we should ready our proofing baskets or bowls, which will help support the structure of our loaves during their final proof.
Start by choosing something the right size. These are going to be big loaves of bread, but we don't want to get crazy. The proofing baskets—called bannetons—that I use at home and at The Cleveland are made specifically for 1.
If you don't have bannetons use a medium serving bowl or colander, the size vessel you might use to serve potatoes for four during dinner. Once shaped, our loaves should fill the basket a little more than halfway, which will leave adequate room for the final rise. To ready your baskets, choose two large kitchen towels made of smooth cloth.
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