Hello from San Francisco, and plunging right into asking for advice :)
Greetings and salutations, fellow bakers! I am in the just-south-of-San-Francisco-proper area, and have been baking for several years. Most recently I have discovered the fun of the cookbook Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day and its companion, Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. They are great for lazy experimentation and day-to-day bread needs for our household (which is just myself, my new hubby the professional chef who is terrified of baking, and our cat Feral Fawcett).
That being said, I love baking and have been trying to expand outside my comfort zone to become a better baker. I am SO excited to have found this website, and have been reduced to almost galloping around the room doing Tony-the-Tiger fist pumps and 'woot!' ing at all of the luscious recipes everyone has posted. Can't wait to delve in and bake up a storm!
All of that being said, I'm already asking for help. I found a recipe for a cheddar, beer, and mustard pull-apart bread that I would love to make for said husband, but the prospect of waking up early enough to do a double rise on the dough and put it together and bake it without him noticing in our teeny-tiny apartment is both hideous and well nigh impossible. The recipe indicates you can make the dough the night before and then let it rest at room temperature for an hour the next morning before commencing with the putting-together-thereof and subsequent second rest, but that doesn't seem to save much time to me.
My question is, is there any reason I couldn't make the dough the night before, do the first rise, assemble it, and then refrigerate it overnight? I know it will retard the rise, so I would still get it out and let it do a bit of a returning-to-room temperature before popping it in the oven the next morning. Or would I at that point just take it straight from fridge to oven?
If anybody has an ideas or advice, I would love to hear it.