November 2, 2010 - 2:39pm
freezing dough a bust!
I froze 1/2 a recipe of dough before final shaping with the idea of shaping and baking within a week. I thawed for 24 hours in the refrigerator and noticed some rise as it thawed. Let it come to room temp and then carefully shaped so as not to degas. That was it - no further rise after 3 hours. I hate to throw out the dough. Can I use it as a starter or something?
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Hi,
No reason why you couldn't use it to get a starter/sour going. You could also use a portion of it, 20% or less in a new dough to help increase flavour or just to use it up rather than chucking it. Here's a link on freezing bread dough that you might find helpful next time you want to freeze dough.
http://breadbaking.about.com/od/beginnerbasics/ht/freezedough.htm
The only thing I would add to this is that increasing the lipid/fat content by 3-4% will also help protect the yeast while the dough is frozen. This is assuming the dough you're freezing has any fat included in the formula. Otherwise just follow the guidelines in the link.
Franko
The link is good and although I'm not sure I would try freezing dough again as it seems to be an added step and an added nuisance, I had hoped I could break this dough up and use in future batches as per your suggestion. Similar to Dan Lepard's video from about a week ago? I'm over 7-hours into the final rise and have noticed some progress in the last hour, but I just don't think it's going to make it. Guess I now have old dough ...
Thanks again - Sharon
I much prefer to freeze the bread, rather than the dough. Bread does beautifully in the freezer and, when handled correctly, can taste like it was freshly baked when you are ready to eat it.
The secret is wrapping it well to avoid freezer burn (I use one layer of foil and one layer of plastic film) and then LEAVING IT WRAPPED to thaw. This way the moisture lost gets reabsorbed by the bread. When it is thawed, I throw it, still wrapped in foil, into a warm oven (about 350 degrees) for 10 to 15 minutes for that freshly baked taste. Store it and treat it as if you baked it that day.
Frozen dough seems to take forever to warm up during most of the year. Thawing bread is much more predictable timewise, and the results are great.
I found myself baking bread at midnight last night! After 8-9 hours of proofing inside the microwave, the dough looked like it had some life to it. So I decided to chance it and hope there was enough oomph left in it for some oven spring. Amazingly I got a really nice, crispy, thin crust but the crumb was too dense for my taste - the flavor wasn't too bad. Not worthy of pictures. It will be okay for toast. I will probably not freeze dough again though. As mentioned by Janknitz, the dough just never warms up. A good lesson learned so not all was a waste of time. I also used a cast iron fry pan filled with water for the first time to create steam inside the oven. Liked the results very much and will continue that process.
Thanks again Franko and Janknitz for your suggestions - Sharon
in confusion, reading about several 'frozen dough' problems
THEN I realized why I've had no problems...very small quantities of frozen dough work extremely well
I think the first problem I read about was frozen pizza dough. However, the OP didn't mention whether the dough that was frozen was pizza-sized, or a large batch. My lightly-oiled, 5-6oz, pre-shaped, frozen pizza doughs defrost in two and a half hours or so (on the kitchen counter) and work as well as the unfrozen stuff—and sometimes taste better—up to 2 weeks later. I've only done this a few times. Maybe I was just lucky
Might this possibly work for bread, as well? Make smaller, lightly-oiled 'rolls' from one batch and pop them into sandwich bags (one-third or quarter-loaf pieces) that will defrost quickly; re-integrate them and then do a final rise (2-3hours) It might be worth a try...
Cheers,
copyu
and after it has thawed work instant yeast into the dough to proof it?