How long in advance can you make up a batch of bread dough without baking it?!
How long in advance can you make up a batch of bread dough without baking it?
Answers:
Up to 24 hours. Keep it in the fridge to prove.
You also need to keep the dough covered with a lid or a damp cloth, otherwise it'll form a leathery skin on top. After getting it out of the fridge you'll need to knead it (sorry about the pun) and let it prove for a second time in a warm place. When it's risen above the tops of the tins (assuming you're using tins, not a breadmaker) you can bake it. Start it in a hot oven and turn the oven down when the bread's half cooked.
You can't make dough in advance if you wish to bake decent bread. I'm sorry to be pedantic, but the joy of home-baked bread is in the freshness that comes from baking a fully-proved dough.
Proving dough in a fridge sets the little tootsies on the march towards the Chorleywood and Milton Keynes processes, the processes that have arsed up bread and ruined it for consumers who do not have a local bakery or bake bread themselves.
If CubCur answers this question, pay special attention to what he has to say.
Depends on your patience and what you are trying to accomplish. You can refrigerate dough for days, freeze it for weeks. If you cut way back on your yeast, you can rise your bread at room temperature for days -- and you will enjoy some of the best bread you have ever tasted, too! I often freeze dough for pizzas, since making dough for a single pie is much too tedious. Refrigerated dough can be a little finicky until you get the technique down -- I like to refrigerate mine after the first punch down, but I know folks who refrigerate theirs before the first rise. The recovery proof (warming it back up) after freezing or refrigerating is where you have to watch and adjust for the temperature and humidity in your house, and I recommend at least two punch downs and rises before shaping and final rise. But that is not necessary, just my MO.
A slow dough is one of my favorites. You still want to find a cool place in your house, but you can start your dough with just a 1/4-tsp of yeast and cold water, and just punch down the dough once or twice a day till it is rising fast enough that you need to monitor it more. This isn't very practical if you are just trying to prep for a dinner party, unless you know your rise times and can calculate the final rise to be ready on that particular night...