Reading a Rising Dough Instead of a Clock

The clock is a rough translation

A recipe that says one hour is describing a dough in a roughly 24 °C kitchen with a standard amount of yeast. At 18 °C the same dough may need two hours; beside a warm oven it may be ready in forty minutes. Yeast activity roughly doubles with every 8 to 10 °C rise, so treat the printed time as a first check rather than a deadline.

The reliable check is the poke test. Press a floured finger about a centimetre into the dough. If the dent fills back quickly, it needs longer. If it stays and the surrounding dough looks subtly deflated, it has gone too far. Ready dough springs back slowly and leaves a shallow, soft indentation.

• Look for a domed surface and visible bubbles at the edge of the bowl.
• Dough that has roughly doubled in volume is usually ready, but volume is a poor signal in a wide, shallow bowl.
• A cold overnight rise develops flavour with very little yeast; use 1-2 g instant yeast for 500 g flour.
• Too warm and too fast gives a yeasty, beer-like smell that baking will not remove.

Shaping and the second rise

Handle a risen dough with a light hand. Press out the largest gas pockets, fold the edges in to build surface tension, and let it rest ten minutes before the final shape so the gluten stops fighting you. The second rise is shorter than the first, usually thirty to fifty minutes, and is about an even, airy crumb rather than volume.

Heat at the start of the bake

Preheat for a full twenty to thirty minutes, not merely until the oven beeps. The first ten minutes in a hot oven produce oven spring, the final expansion before the crust sets. A covered pot or a tray of steam keeps the surface supple long enough for that to happen; uncover later for colour. A loaf is done when the base sounds hollow and the centre reads about 96 °C on a probe.

Questions that come up