I'd like to bake my own bread now and again, but timing things like proving and baking around a regular work day make it practically impossible. I'm not going to get up at 4am to make dough so it proves in time to be baked before work, and the kitchen is rather monopolised by dinner in the evenings. In an ideal scenario I would like to either:
- Make dough before bedtime (before 10pm)
- Knock back, second prove and bake around 7am
or
- Make dough at breakfast time
- Knock back, second prove and bake at dinner time
The second approach is probably better as the oven will likely be hot from dinner anyway so less energy wastage.
The problem is, I can't leave dough to prove for 8 to 10 hours by normal methodology. I'm wondering if there's some way I could reliably slow the first prove. Thinking slightly differently, I wondered about feeding the yeast in a controlled environment, specific amount of sugar and water temperature overnight, and then making dough with that and skipping the first proving.
Any recipes of convenience exist?
Best Answer
I have had luck with refrigerating dough after the first proof and deflation. I allowed it to rest in the refigerator for about seven hours then removed it to the countertop for the second rise followed by baking. (The second rise will require more time than had it not been refrigerated, as the dough is cold)
This was a basic Italian Bread recipe with just white bread (strong-UK) flour, active dry yeast, water, salt and canola
You would need to experiment with other recipes; I cannnot predict with more and/or different ingredients