Dough – Help! Liege Waffle excessively dense

If you replace liquid ingredients with a powdered equivalent, you'll need to add in additional liquid to compensate.

For instance, let's say the recipe calls for two eggs. If you replace two eggs with a powdered substitute, you'll need to add water to the mix in addition to the milk in order to replace the moisture loss by using a powdered egg substitute.

I'd also be concerned about loss in product quality when using an instant / powdered substitute, but in principle it should work.

That being said, I work in a bakery where we do something similar. For our muffins and scones, we combine the butter, flour, salt, sugar and baking powder and mix it until the butter is incorporated into the dry ingredients. We also beat together the eggs, milk and water required.

The dry mix and the wet mix are stored separately in large quantities in refrigeration and when we go to bake we simply combine them.

There will be a shorter shelf life to the dry mix because it's got the butter in it, but under refrigeration it lasts a long time. In theory, you could store it in the freezer -- I know you can freeze butter with minimal loss of quality so I cannot think of a reason why this wouldn't work, and it will give it a very long shelf life (however long you can freeze butter for.)

The egg, milk & water mixture's expiration date is whichever expires first from the egg and milk.

This probably isn't a practical solution unless you're making waffles all the time, but if you make them a few times it week it might be worth it because you won't lose quality. Otherwise, parse through your waffle recipe an ingredient at a time, replacing liquid with powdered versions, making sure to keep track of the water you'll need to add back in.

I have to contradict @saj14saj here. I have frequently had bread made with underdeveloped gluten (my grandma uses AP flour and tends to knead very short, 2-3 minutes per hand, and use very short proofing times). The bread is soft and cakelike, but it has no trouble rising, and it is neither flat nor dense.

On the other hand, I have had bread with exactly the same symptoms as yours - first feeling great, then left out for a long time to proof. After that, it looks good, but one touch makes it collapse into itself. The reason was very clear: overproofing. There is no doubt that underdeveloped gluten cannot have been a factor in my case. First, I am experienced enough to know when my gluten is developed - the bread was kneaded well beyond windowpane test. Second, it was a large batch of dough. I baked the first loaf at the optimal time and it rose just fine and had a nice texture with traceable gluten sheets through the crumb. It was the second loaf, which I baked a few hours later (and the proofing loaf spent them in a 30 degrees celsius kitchen in summer) which made the trouble. The dough had exactly the "loose" feel you describe, unlike the normal, springy feel before the proofing. It collapsed on touch and would not rise at all. It also had a very strong yeast fermentation taste, unlike the other loaf.

From your description and my experience, my conclusion is that overproofing until your starter died in its own waste products is the most likely culprit. The simple answer would be to not let it sit out overnight. The right amount of time to let it sit would depend on the room temperature, on the amount of starter you used, but also its leavening strength, and that is a bit hard to judge for a newly created starter. My best suggestion is to use trial and error and maybe bake 4 hours after knocking instead of 8 next time, and the time after that adjusting with a smaller increment in the right direction depending on whether the bread turns out overproofed or underrisen.