Bread: Reading the Dough

Bread recipes give times, but dough runs on temperature: the same dough can rise in an hour in a warm kitchen and take three in a cold one. Learning to read the dough matters more than the clock.

Kneading

Kneading builds gluten, the stretchy network that traps the gas the yeast makes. Under-kneaded dough tears and makes a dense loaf.

The windowpane test tells you when it is ready: stretch a small piece of dough between your fingers. If it goes thin enough to let light through without tearing, the gluten is ready.

A slightly sticky dough makes a lighter loaf than a dry one. Rather than adding flour, oil your hands and the worktop, or knead with a scraper.

Time does some of the work for you. A wetter dough left to rest and folded over on itself every half hour develops gluten with hardly any kneading at all.

Salt and yeast

Keep salt and yeast apart when you first weigh them into the bowl; salt in direct contact slows the yeast. Once mixed into the dough it does no harm.

Water that is too hot kills yeast. Lukewarm, comfortable on the inside of your wrist, is right.

Proving

The first prove is done when the dough has roughly doubled and a floured finger pushed in leaves a hole that does not spring back at once.

A slower rise, in a cool place or in the fridge overnight, gives the bread more flavour. Warmth speeds it up but makes a blander loaf.

Shaping

Shaping is about tension. Fold the edges into the middle, turn the dough over and drag it towards you on an unfloured worktop so the surface tightens into a smooth skin. A taut skin makes a loaf rise up; a slack one spreads sideways.

The second prove

Press a floured fingertip into the side of the shaped loaf. If the dent springs back slowly and only part of the way, bake it now. If it springs straight back, give it longer. If it does not spring back at all, it has over-proved: bake it at once, and expect a flatter loaf.

Baking

Steam in the first minutes keeps the crust soft enough for the loaf to expand fully. Pour boiling water into a hot tray on the oven floor as the bread goes in.

Bread is done when it sounds hollow when tapped underneath, or reads about 96°C in the middle. Let it cool for an hour before cutting: it is still cooking inside, and cutting it early makes the crumb gummy.