November 22, 2006 - 6:22am
Retarding encirched loaves?
I'm making a cranberry walnut bread for Thanksgiving, and won't have time to do the whole process tomorrow. The dough contains eggs and butter - can I still proof and shape it tonight, refrigerate it and bake it tomorrow?
I've done this with straight doughs before, but never an enriched dough.
Thanks!
-Joe
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That is essentially the same formula as our overnight cinnamon rolls, which are designed to proof in the refrigerator overnight, and they rise and bake out quite nicely. I have wondered if the long cold rise adds a bit of sourness to balance the sweetness of the enriching ingrediants in fact.
sPh
Thanks, sPh! Do you let them complete their final rise before refrigerating, or put them in the fridge right after shaping? I know my enriched doughs tend to rise very aggressively, and I'm wondering if they'll overproof if left out too long before refrigerating.
-Joe
> Thanks, sPh! Do you let them complete their final rise before r
> efrigerating, or put them in the fridge right after shaping?
Well, "shaping" is a very generous term in this case - my spouse treats the dough quite brutally to get it into cinnamon roll form! But after they are rolled up and in the baking dish, we cover the dough with plastic wrap and put the dish directly into the refrigerator in the unrisen state. All the rising occurs in the refrigerator.
It usually falls to me to bake them out, so I take the dish out of the refrigerator and loosen the plastic wrap at the time I turn on the oven. But I have never found that they rise much more even as they warm up while the oven is heating (30-40 minutes).
sPh
> But I have never found that they rise much more even as they warm up while the oven is heating (30-40 minutes).
Right, I've found the same thing with some of my straigh dough loaves, which is why I'm concerned. I have to strike that happy medium of enough proofing the night before so it is risen adequately in the morning without overproofing.
Wish me luck! :)
-Joe
I haven't done anywhere near as much experimenting as I would like ;-( , but I suspect it may not be possible to overproof when rising in the refrigerator. The yeast seems to reach a balance point with the temperature just at the point the dough is correctly proofed. Which intutively makes some sense, but would require an intense investigation to prove/disprove.
Now I if can convince my spouse I need to spend my next week of vac baking 16 hours/day....
sPh