TIMING FOR BREAD IS EVERYTHING

If you're a smart baker you can manipulate the quantitiy of yeast and the temperature of the dough so that its rising times suit your convenience, and so that you produce the bread you like.

Most recipes for yeasted breads make dough that is ready for the oven in 3 to 4 hours (of if you are using a Bosch Mixer, in about 45 min.) but if you want to let the dough rise longer nearly any recipe can be adapted to accomplish this.  Similarily, you can reduce the preparation time so that your fast dough (by hand) is in the oven in 2 1/2 hr.

There are other reasons to vary the timing of your bread.  More yeast and warmer dough make a higher loaf.  cool dough and a longer rising time produce a slightly smaller bread, but one that is flavourful, keeps well, and is very nutritious.  There are some tricks to making good bread on your own schedule.  Some of them are obvious, others are not.  If you are a beginner, I would urge you most earnestly to set aside time to make your first breads at a leisurely pace once or twice before you try changing timings.  When you get fancy, it helps to know what you're doing.

When you vary timiings, it's particularly important to keep alert to what is happening to the dough; that is your tipoff to how well you are adjusting the amount of yeast and the temperature of the dough.  After each one, look really carefully at you finger poke (test to see if the bread is ready to be punched down).  Does the dough come back a little, shrinking the hole?  For the next rising, you will want to give the dough a bit more warmth so it can ferment adequately in the amount of time you have allowed,  If the dough not only doesn't fill in the hole but sighs profoundly with alcohol on it's breath, next time keep it cooler, for you are courtin a gray, yeasty-tasting loaf,  The final rise, or proof, is most important to time closely.  Especially if you're new at this, try to arrange to work nearby, so that you can keep and eye on the loaf.

Timing For Straight Dough

A straight dough is one that has been mixed using all its ingredients from the beginning.  Most of our recipes in the New Recipe section are this type of dough.  A sponge dough is mixed in stages and offer further possibilites for timing variations. 

Hand Made Bread in a Tearing Hurry - Fast Dough - 2 1/2 hour until baking

This bread turns out very high, with mild bakery-made flavour, loaves or rolls produced by this timing comes in handy when you wnat bread fast.  This pattern will work for any recipe that doesn't call for unusal timing.  Basically, you double the yeast and keep the dough very warm; if you manage it just right, the dough moves so quickly that you really have to stay on your toes to avoi letting it get away from you.  You can almost see it rise!!  For light buttery dinner rolls, this timing is a natural' if you are making loaves it isn't a bad idea to choose a recipe that has interesting ingredients to add taste texture, since the bread will not in itself have a rich flavour.  (dried fruits, potato, cooked cereal or seeds for example.

Good Morning (or Good Afternoon) Bread---Short-Normal Dough -about 4 hrs plus until baking

This timing usually fits comfortably into a day at a home and it is the pattern that most people follow making bread.  The dough is realy a farly fast-rising one, and will produce very light bread.  Still the timing is not so fast that the bread does not have a good flavour and keeping quality, and the nutritional value is respectable too.  For best flavour, don't let the dough get warmer than 80 degrees F. during it's first rising times.  If the dough is kept cooler, it will rise a little more slowly, but the bread will be very good.

Early Riser's (or Night Owl's) Delight - Long Normal Dough:  about 7 hrs. plus until baking

With the same measurements as the previous choice, this timing is more leisurely both for you and for the dough.  We usually start the bread about 5 A.M.  and take it out of the oven at lunchtime.  With the longer rise, the bread has a rich flavour and very good keeping quality, plus some nutritional advantages from an extra fermentation.  Since it rises at room temperature, no special arrangement is necessary for warming the dough, so long as it is protected from drafts.  Doughs like this do not demand such precise timing as those with a faster pace, but they still have plenty of energy to rise high. 

No Knead Bread:  Now for a real long timing but no work, check out this great tasting bread recipe that proofs for over 24 hours..