Folding dough effectively takes a bit of practice, but is one of my favorite parts of making bread. A good fold lets us stare into a dough's soul.
So, why do we fold dough? Lots of reasons. To start with, folding dough develops gluten structure. By first stretching and layering our gluten, we help our dough more effectively hold water and air.
As we trap more air in our dough during these motions, folding also helps to establish a more open crumb structure in our baked loaves.
Secondly, folding dough redistributes our yeast and its food, making sure each little Cookie Monster gets its fill.
Also, folding dough helps to regulate its temperature, keeping it consistent through its mass. Together, these two consequences of folding regulate yeast activity, and help our dough stay on schedule. To perform a fold, start by wetting your dough spatula and hands with water. Then, gently scrape around the edges of the bowl to prevent sticking, and make a clean fold possible. Without tugging, pull the side farthest from you up and towards you, and fold your dough in half. Give the bowl a quarter turn, then perform the same motion again.
Give the bowl a half turn, and repeat the same motion. Lastly, pull the unfolded side of your dough carefully up from the bottom, and pull it up and over to form a neat package, like so. All the while, allow the dough to stretch itself—your hands are just assistants. Performing these motions too aggressively may tear the gluten, making the process counter-productive.
The dough should now feel taught but pillowy, and have a spring to the touch. Also, you'll notice that the dough is far less sticky than before, mostly because gluten is AMAZING, and does all sorts of useful things with water and air. Re-cover the bowl and have a cocktail. Our second fold will be performed about half an hour later, when the creases from our first fold have melded together, showing us that our gluten network has relaxed and is ready to be re-stretched.
With this second fold we want to be very careful not to push too hard on our dough, or we might de-gas it and undo a lot of the work done by the yeast and ourselves thus far. Don't shake the baby—every bit of gas counts.
In the event you do squash your dough a bit, don't worry about it too much. Just be extra careful during shaping to treat your dough gently. These things take practice. You will still have delicious bread. Re-re-cover the bowl and have another beer, or two, cause it will be most of an hour before we disturb our dough again. Check your dough after another 45 minutes or so. Wet your hand and gently push on the dough surface.
Feels dense? Go watch the Daily Show, and come back in a half hour. More rising time is just fine so long as we don't just up and forget about it. Feels really dense? Move it to a warmer part of your kitchen. The dough should feel like a waterbed, pillowy and with some spring, but your finger should leave a slight imprint. Is it there yet? You're ready to divide the dough, which is the first step towards shaping your very own loaves. To divide the dough, lightly flour the top with AP flour, scrape around the sides with your dough spatula to free it from the bowl and quickly flip the bowl upside down.
The dough should flop out in one large blob, and what was at the bottom of the bowl should now be on top. It'll also be really sticky. This is good, like so:. Lightly flour your hands, bench knife, and the counter top on which you will be shaping.
With your bench scraper, decisively cut the dough in half, pushing the halves away from each other with the bench knife, making sure to keep the bench knife's blade firmly flush with your counter's surface.
Pre-shaping is all about giving your dough a heads-up about what shape it's going to be later, and giving the gluten a little time to get situated. Think of it as a dress-rehearsal for the big show. For us, our final shape is going to be round—a boule—and so our pre-shape is going to be round as well. To pre-shape, we're going to perform a series of folds similar to what we did during the bulk rise. We want to do this in as few motions as possible, making those motions decisive and clean, without being aggressive.
It'll look something like this:. Once you've folded your dough into a neat little package, gently flip it over with your bench knife to let the smooth side face you. For the moment this is the top of our loaf-to-be. The place where the different sides of the dough meet and meld is our seam, which should end up on the bottom. Like this:. Most important here, is to not over-think this. Just try to get some tension on the surface of the loaf. If we mess with it too much now we're just going to push our hard-earned gas out of it.
Pre-shapes—like rehearsals—aren't meant to be perfect. Lightly flour the tops of the rounds and cover with a towel. Allow the pre-shaped loaves to hang out on the bench for a while—anywhere between fifteen and forty minutes will do the trick. By letting the tension we built during our pre-shape relax, we'll be able to create even more tension during our final shape, all without tearing the surface of the loaf.
This helps make big, beautiful bread. This is our bench rest. While this is happening, we should ready our proofing baskets or bowls, which will help support the structure of our loaves during their final proof.
Start by choosing something the right size. Other people like to use a rolling pin to flatten the dough out to an even thickness whilst also compressing out any trapped gas. This is best for bread baked in a tin. Since you want to knead bread to get a more even and tight crumb, you get the opposite from not kneading it. During the rising process, the gas produced by the yeast gets trapped by the gluten structure.
As more gas is produced, the gluten acts like a balloon and contains the gas whilst slowly expanding. Over a period of time, these gluten balloons will grow larger and larger until the dough is fully proofed. However, gluten can form naturally by allowing the dough to ferment for 12 or more hours.
This tactic gives both the yeast and the enzymes enough time to work their magic. The enzymes within the flour break down the knotted up proteins, allowing the gas produced by the yeast to inflate the dough and make it rise. Think of it as a slow-motion kneading. If you have the time, fermentation provides a no-fuss option for creating a perfect loaf. The acidification of this process makes the bread easier to digest and sometimes tolerated by those with gluten sensitivities.
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