For many years I would use bread recipes by people like Delia Smith and others. They're fine and give a great grounding in the basics of breadmaking. However, I always got frustrated when it came time to leave the dough to prove.
This is a critical part of the operation. You need to leave the dough for at least an hour somewhere moderately warm so that the yeast or leaven can do its stuff. Air bubbles form, gluten hydrates and forms lovely long stretchy chains, flavours develop and the dough expands to at least double its original size.
But you can't just leave it lying around. It needs a humid atmosphere to prevent the dough drying and a nasty skin forming.
Some writers suggest leaving it in the mixing bowl covered with cling film. Result: dough rises and sticks to cling film and you have a horridable mess to clean up.
Some would suggest covering it with a damp tea-towel: either the tea towel would sag, or the dough would rise and stick, or the tea towel would dry out and a nasty crust would form on top of the dough.
Others turned the problem on its head: leave the dough on the counter top, and cover it with the mixing bowl. Great if you have a huge kitchen where you can leave workspace undisturbed for that long. Not so great if you need to move things around.
But then one day, about 6 or 7 years ago, I hit upon the answer. I'm pretty sure I didn't have the idea myself, but it changed my life! The absolutely positively best way to leave a bowl of dough to prove, is to stick the bowl in a suitably capacious carrier bag, inflate it and seal it up. The carrier bag keeps the air from circulating, so all the humidity from the dough remains inside. But by inflating it first, you leave plenty of room for the rising and unless your children decide it would be fun to land their spaceships on it, the dough won't stick.
Try it - it's great. Once you've got the hang of it, you'll find that by employing expansive arm movements as you swish the bag around the bowl and tuck the mouth of the bag underneath, the bag practically self-inflates. Think of a second-rate magician manoeuvering his cape around the top hat as he subtly hoiks the bunny out of the hidden pocket and deposits it in the previously empty top hat.
A couple of caveats:
1. Child-friendly carrier bags are useless. Only shop where they don't put holes in the bottom of the bags.
2. Save up the larger bags. Ikea carrier bags are fantastic - which is probably why my old friend Mr Thomson is such a keen breadmaker.
3. Make sure they are clean before you use them. If they've had potatoes in, probably best to save them for something less important - like the kids' lunch.
4. They get pretty damp inside during use. Turn them inside-out to dry before storing for the next time.
5. If you're leaving dough to prove on the stovetop, make sure you don't turn the wrong hotplate on. It can be messy.
Of course, this is all completely worthless information if you just want to use a bread machine, but as you can probably tell - the machine hasn't really captured my imagination yet.
This bag came from Victoria 32nd Supermarket in Vancouver, but you could use one from almost anywhere.
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