Active dry yeast

If you’re using active dry yeast, your recipe will tell you to proof it. What does this mean?

Dissolve it in lukewarm water with a pinch of sugar.

After 10 to 15 minutes, it should have bubbled up and become creamy looking. That means the yeast is alive. If it doesn’t do anything, get yourself some new yeast. And if you don’t want to go through this step, use instant yeast—it’s all we use in the King Arthur test kitchen..

Overnight starters

An overnight starter does wonderful things for bread, pizza, and other yeasted treats. Yeast gives off organic acids and alcohol as it grows, which contribute to both flavor and texture. So giving yeast an overnight start and time to grow is a great idea.

Some starters are quite wet, like this one. It's usually referred to as a poolish, and is made from equal parts flour and water, by weight, plus a tiny pinch of yeast—1/32 to 1/16 teaspoon.

And look what happens to it overnight! A "ripe" starter should look like the top of a cooking pancake, full of moist bubbles.

This starter starts out dry, like a finished dough; dryer starters are usually called bigas. A traditional biga is made from five parts flour to three parts water, by weight; e.g., a heaping cup of flour to 6 tablespoons water. This is a VERY dry dough; we usually increase the water a little bit, to make it come together easier.

Overnight, the biga becomes moist and bubbly, just like the poolish.

What’s the difference, poolish vs. biga? Subtle, at best. Some bakers believe the biga lends a nuttier flavor to bread. And in general, a biga doesn’t rise quite as fast as a poolish. So if you think your starter might be rising longer than 14 hours or so, make a dry starter—a biga.

Kneading

Once all the dough ingredients have been mixed together, it’s time to knead them, which develops the dough’s gluten. What’s gluten? Strands of protein which, when developed, become very elastic. This elastic gluten is what allows bread dough to stretch as it rises. If bread dough didn’t stretch, it would "pop" like a balloon, and collapse.

Here’s what dough looks like when it’s been mixed in a stand mixer, using the flat beater paddle.

And here’s what it looks like after 7 minutes of kneading with the dough hook. Quite the difference, eh?

A bread machine does a wonderful and EASY job kneading bread dough. How easy? Put all your dough ingredients in the bucket. Press start, and walk away.

Come back about 25 minutes later to beautiful, smooth dough.

Speaking of smooth dough, it’s not necessary to knead dough till it’s completely smooth. Sometimes it’s not even desirable. If your recipe calls for a long rise, like 2 to 3 hours or more, the dough may become overdeveloped. Knead one of these long-rising doughs only about 2/3 of the time you usually would. It’ll be a big rough, like this.

Look how it’s smoothed out, though, after a couple of hours of rising.

Whole-grain dough will never be as smooth as dough made with all-purpose flour. Don’t stress; it’s natural.

Here’s what 100% whole wheat dough looks like after being kneaded; a bit gnarly.

And here’s what it looks like after rising; still a bit rough.

Rising

Most recipes call for your dough to double in bulk. It helps to raise your dough in a large, clear measuring cup, so you can track its progress.

Here it is at the start, about 3 cups of dough.

And here it is 90 minutes later, a towering 6 cups of light, airy, risen dough.

When dough is rising, it needs to be kept moist; otherwise, a skin forms on its surface, making it harder for it to rise. Plastic wrap is a good solution.

Here’s dough in a bowl, covered with plastic wrap.

And here’s the same dough after it’s risen—right up to the plastic wrap.

What if you don’t have a big enough bowl? Use a BIG plastic bag. Close it at the very top, to leave room for expansion.

It’ll fill with air as the dough rises.

Shaping dough

Making pizza? Let gravity do some of the work for you. Shape the dough into a round, then move your hands around the circumference slowly, pausing frequently to let it stretch itself downward.

Oh, and once it’s on the pan—the perfect rising cover is one of those round plastic covers that covers a supermarket deli platter or sandwiches.

Now, how about dough that fights back? You know the story; you roll and roll, and it snaps back like an elastic band. That’s the gluten—working against all your efforts, in this case. The solution? Try a dough relaxer.

Or time. Stretch dough as far as you can before it starts fighting back. Walk away.

Come back in 15 minutes, and pat/stretch it again, till it fights back. Walk away.

After another 15 minutes, you should be able to pat it all the way to the edges of the pan.

How about making a filled bread? The challenge is to keep the filling from burning as the bread bakes.

First, pat the dough into a rough rectangle, and place the filling—in this case, raisins— on top.

Enclose the raisins by stretching the dough around them like an envelope.

Seal the edges, and there you have it—dough with the raisins inside. A few raisins may pop out as you stretch the dough into the pan, but the majority will be inside, safe from burning.

Making rolls? Stretch and gather the dough into a knot at the bottom.

Turn it over; the top will be nice and smooth. Bake the rolls smooth side up.

Braids are always impressive. Start with three equal strands of dough.

Squeeze them together at one end.

Lay one of the outer strands across the middle strand. Then lay the opposite outer strand across the new middle strand.

Continue down the length of the strands.

Tuck the ends in when you’re done.

Second rise

Choose the right size pan for your loaf. A typical 3 to 3 1/2-cup-flour loaf calls for an 8 1/2" x 4 1/2" x 2 1/2" pan.

At the beginning of its rise, the dough level will be far below the rim of the pan.

When fully risen, the dough will have climbed about 1" higher than the rim of the pan.

The answer is: a really, REALLY slack dough. It takes practice to be able to recognize a very slack, "wet" dough that’s not TOO wet; if it’s too wet, it won’t be able to hold its shape.

But just the right ratio of liquid to flour, and you get this gorgeous, open texture.

Hope you’ve learned something new. Enjoy!