September 27, 2006 - 1:52pm
is there any way to save this bread?
Hi,
This is my first post here. I have some whole wheat dough (1/2 whole wheat, 1/2 bread flour)--I doubled the recipe, but forgot to double the salt and yeast. It's been slowly rising for about 4 hours--is there any hope for it? Should I just let it rise until it doubles (I've kept spritzing it with water), or add yeast? Or should I just throw it out and start over?
Thanks in advance!
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No problem at all. At this point in the day, I would suggest that you either give it a turn, or go ahead and shape it. Then put it in the refrigerator (in a suitable rising container or something cobbled up out of a container + stretch wrap) overnight. In the morning you can shape, proof, and bake it. Or just bake it if you shape this afternoon.
Slow rise generally means more flavour.
sPh
It's not too late to add the salt either. Just flatten the loaf, sprinkle the salt on, give it a quick kneading, shape it and let it rise again.
In fact, several bakers seem to recommend adding salt later - tightens the dough and makes it easier to shape - allegedly!!
I think it would have made passable pizza crust. But it made really lousy bread. Nice flavor, but very dense and heavy.
I let it rise overnight in the fridge, then about 4 hours at outside temperature (80's here in TX) before realizing there was only half the yeast, salt and honey required.
I let it rise another hour or so, then shaped it into loaf pans and let it rise til it passed the finger poke test. But it still didn't rise very well...
Spritzed the oven, baked it at 350 for about 35 minutes and let it cool. Heavy, wet loaves. Ah well, I'll know to punch it down and add more yeast (and probably sugar?) if this happens again...
~Michelle
You can always use this dough as biga or sponge starter then add another batch(more yeast) and mix.
I've had this happen a few times, probably because the liquid was too hot. Sad little lump of dough sitting there, with nothing going on. What I've done is proofed a little more yeast, added it to the dough, adjusted the flour, and then gone on from there. I've had to knead in salt later also. In any event, I've ended up with useable bread, which was my goal.