sl wrote in news:slrnc85lpb.1b2.sl@home.24.159.242.58:
What I do is use the oven on my electric range (no pilot light) with the oven light turned on. I do try to monitor the temperature, but it seems to work well when I am trying speed up rising times. The down side is that slower rises at cooler temperatures give better flavor to the bread, but the ideal is not always possible in my life.
Same amount as i do when i'm proofing on the counter, or in a warm oven.
I take it out of the fridge and let it sit on the counter while the oven heats up. I have a lousy oven so this is probably more than a half an hour. It's still cold when it goes in.=20
It doesn't rise as tall as it would on the counter or in a makeshift proofing box, but i get a lot more oven spring, and the loaf comes out pretty much the same size - but with a better crumb texture and mellower flavor.=20
Pizza dough . . . You've gotta understand that I'm single, I make enough dough for six 9" crusts, let the whole mass of dough rise once, portion it out, dust five of them liberally with flour, bag 'em, and put them in the fridge while #6 rises again on the counter to become dinner. I don't really proof it, it just needs time to loosen up after being portioned and kneaded into a ball.=20
The other five are transferred from the fridge to the freezer the next day. They can live in there for at least a couple months. The thing is, I like mushrooms saut=E9ed with reasonably fresh garlic on my pizza, which makes pizza a little bit of a production as i have to find a reasonably fresh bulb of garlic and some decent brown mushrooms every time i decide to have pizza, and this can take time in such an unenlightened grocery market as the one i live in. Say all you want about the convenience of jars of chopped garlic, it doesn't taste the same at all - neither does garlic cut an hour ago vs. garlic cut 30 seconds ago. Given the time investment in tracking down and preparing toppings, i usually don't have pizza more frequently than every couple or three weeks.=20
Anyway, when i do decide i want pizza on a particular day, if it's the day after i made the batch i just transfer one ball from the fridge to the counter and allow it to come to room temperature before working it.=20
If it's come from the freezer, obviously there is more time invested in the thawing process, and I'm not convinced that I've come up with a perfect method. freezer to fridge the night before and then fridge to counter after work, I've done sometimes. freezer to submersing the ziplock bag containing the frozen ball in warm water, which will get the dough a little wet in most cases, will thaw it in under an hour. In the winter i can get away with transferring from the freezer to the counter before going to work but even then it's sometimes proofed more than i'd prefer when i get home.=20
For the record, the Papa John's chain has regional factories where they manufacture balls of dough, proof them, refrigerate them, and truck them out to the stores. The quality of their crust - for the kind of crust they're trying to make - is pretty good. It's their alleged 'sauce' I take issue with. canned tomato paste is not a sauce.=20
Howdy,
The top of the fridge is still a warm area because whatever the location of the coils, the warm air they generate will migrate upward...
That said, as mentioned before, a cooler, slower, rise makes for more flavorful bread.
All the best,
I have always put my bread dough in a linen closet in the hall outside the bathroom. The closet backs up against the center of the house and the chimney shaft that leads to the roof. There is always warmth there because the boiler works to daily to heat water, even in summer. It's the perfect temp for a nice rise!
Julie
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