unlimited prep time but very limited pre-bake schedule.
Trying to help out a good friend of mine who is trying to increase business at his donut shop. Everybody loves my breads, so this is an opportunity to see if we can make a bit of extra cash and go legit at the same time
We have unlimited prep time and can refrigerate, freeze, whatever we need to do to stall the final rise..
The stumbling block is they close at 5pm daily. They get back at 4am to turn on the donut line and convection oven. Ideally, the bread needs to be fresh baked and ready for sale at 5:30 when they open the front door.
I'm thinking, to do my proof to about 75% then egg wash it and toss it in the fridge overnight.
In the morning pull it out at 4:30 let it warm for a half hour and bake it off @ 5:00?
Or any other suggestion you have.
It depends on many factors that you haven't told us about the recipe and the environment. You can bake straight from the fridge, so the bread needs to be close to fully proofed before you put it in.
Yeasted formulae are a bit more predictable, so you may be able to time it by the clock, but for sourdough, it's highly temperature sensitive and you have to watch the dough and not the clock. So your proofing time before putting in the fridge will be different in different seasons.
My Italian Bread, straight dough method, intensive mix
French Bread Sponge method intensive mix:
Poolish (overnight):
Final Dough:
Environment is a commercial donut shop.
Pretty warm and humid during peak production time (0500 to 0900) the rest of the day the kitchen is idle.