Can You Overnight Cold Proof Enriched Doughs
Rookie baker here - I made Maurizio's/Perfect Loaf's Pain de Mie, which yields two (2) 800g loaves. If you watch his video he says not to halve it as it is such good bread that it gets eaten too fast. I currently have only one loaf pan, so I had to stagger proofing and baking. I used 800g for loaf 1 and put 800g back in my bulk ferment tub which I covered and put in the refrigerator. Loaf 2 is in the oven as I type.
It would have been nice to shape loaf 2, load the loaf pan and put it in the refrigerator overnight, baking a fresh loaf in the morning. I didn't want to risk ruining loaf 2 as Maurizio is correct - it does taste good.
So my question is - is there anything inherent in an enriched sourdough recipe that would indicate that one could NOT overnight cold proof in the refrigerator. FYI, Maurizio's Pain de Mie uses only sourdough for leavening and it contains milk and honey (honey used instead of sugar).
Bill
Cold proofing enriched doughs is actually SOP for highly enriched doughs like brioche. Almost every dough I make, lean or enriched, spends at least one night in the fridge. I recently had a timing issue with a batch of ciabatta (only lightly enriched with a bit of olive oil) so it went in the fridge until I could portion and bake the next day. This morning I’m mixing up a highly enriched (butter, buttermilk, sugar) batch of @txfarmer’s sourdough sandwich bread which always spends at least one night in the refrigerator. So, yes you can.
Good luck,
Phil
I left out the butter enrichment in my original post. I previously bookmarked @txfarmers sourdough sandwich bread as something to try. I have seen many good comments about her recipes, techniques and skills.
Thanks Phil.
Bill
Avoids a cold proof when he wants to avoid sourness in the bread. If you do the cold proof, it definitely won’t ruin the bread, but it may be more sour than it would have been otherwise. This isn’t necessarily bad—it’s down to your taste.
When I used to bake brioche buns for the holidays as gifts for my co-workers, I would make a large batch of dough and put the dough in the refrigerator until I was ready to bake. It was usually just 12-16 hrs. I usually just started raising it on the counter and when it puffed up a bit, I put it into the refrig in an oiled container. By the next day it was fully risen. Deflated, shaped and final proofed and baked. Delicious!
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