You have to find the right spot in your own living environment that maintains this ideal

temperature. The inside of a gas range oven with a pilot light may be pretty close to this. The top of

your water heater or refrigerator could be, too. Test various spots in your house with your

thermometer. Once you find it, that can be your permanent bread dough proofing locale. If you have

an electric range, play with it for a while to establish the right heat. Turn the oven on for 30 seconds,

then turn it off. Measure the oven temperature. Keep doing this a few times (while letting the oven

cool completely between trials) until you establish the time you need to bring your oven to about

0°F (27°C). Once you find the ideal preheat time, you can always use that to bring the oven to

yeast-friendly temperature.

When I was a kid, my mother put the covered bowl of the early morning rising dough by my

sister’s feet in her bed who was a late-late riser. On a weekend, she could always count for warmth

in my sister’s bed at least until noon.

Most cookbooks tell you to coat the finished dough with oil or dust it with flour, put it in a

bowl and let it rise in a warm, draft-free place. That is one way. To avoid cleaning up an extra bowl,

use the one you just mixed the dough in. Cover it with a plate or foil. That eliminates the problem of

draft in the house that interfere with the rising dough.

I use a plastic bag to minimize cleanup. I sprinkle the inside with flour, drop the dough in,

and let it rise in the bag, allowing plenty of space to expand. When it is time to punch it down, just

squeeze down the plastic bag and let the gas escape from the dough. Carbon dioxide gas is a

noxious by-product for the yeast, that you need to get rid of. Too much gas interferes with their

proliferation and punching the dough down releases the gas from the dough. When you are ready to

shape the dough, turn the plastic bag inside out and dump the dough on a flour-dusted surface.

At this stage give the dough a gentle kneading of just a few turns to redistribute the yeast

and their food, and to even out the dough temperature throughout. If you are only going to let the

dough rise twice, this is the time to shape it.

If your recipe calls for three rises (not usually necessary but it produces a chewy, well-

textured, yeast bread), let it rise once more. With the now much-multiplied yeast in the dough, it

should double in size again in 30 to 40 minutes. You follow the last rise with one more quick knead

then the dough is ready to be shaped and set for the final rise. Bakers call this proofing.

A hint about cleanup. The starch in the bread dough forms a quick-drying, stubborn mess in

your bowl that is a pain to clean up. Don’t fight it. Soak the bowl and dough-hook in water for

several hours—the dough softens and you can scrape it off with ease with a rubber spatula.

TASTINGS Proofing bread in a panier

The French has an elegant technique to proof a round loaf in a cloth-lined and

flour-dusted basket. Once the bread is fully proofed, the baker gently inverts the

dough on a baking sheet and removes the basket. The impression of the basket

remains on the dough surface and embellishes the surface of the bread. It creates a

show-piece of a bread that is irresistibly beautiful.

Be particularly careful at this final rising that the dough doesn’t overdo it or the gluten

structure may rupture and the dough simply collapses. If you suspect that you may have let the

dough rise too long even though it retains its shape, gently press your finger in it. If the indentation

shrinks, then slowly collapses, the dough has gone too far. You can still save it by kneading it a little

longer to reform the gluten structure and let the yeast act on this fresh dough for another rise. By

now the yeast has multiplied enough that it should not take long.

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