The most unique and popular type of dough is yeast dough. You can use it to make many types of baked goods. It can be either fresh or rich. Of course, everyone has their own favorite recipe for preparing this product, but the method of ripening it is the same. The dough loves heat, so after putting all the necessary ingredients and placing it in any container, we put it somewhere warm and free from drafts. It is better to cover the top of the container with a cotton towel or other material, so that the yeast dough will be saturated with oxygen. When the dough is ready, you can start your favorite thing - baking.
It often happens that after use there is a little dough left, or plans may change completely, and baking has to be left for later. The question arises, what to do with the dough, since it cannot be stored for a long time in a warm place? The way out of this situation is simple: store the yeast dough in the refrigerator .
Storing yeast dough in the refrigerator
If there is a need to store the dough in the refrigerator, then a temperature regime of up to +3°C can preserve it for no more than 48 hours. And with higher temperatures, from +5°C to +8°C, the period decreases and becomes no more than 24 hours. It is not recommended to keep the dough longer than this time, because it will sour and the prepared baked goods will not be tasty. Yeast dough is very finicky, so it requires proper storage.
Using dough after refrigeration
Once you have finished proofing the bread dough, you can move on to the actual baking process.
However, there are a few things you need to remember. Below are some things to consider when you need to take the dough out of the refrigerator to bake it:
- Do not bake with cold bread dough. Taking cold bread dough straight into the oven to bake is a recipe for disaster. You need to make sure you have enough time for the dough to come to room temperature. To do this, leave it on the counter while you preheat the oven.
- Only take out what you need - unless you plan to bake all the dough in the refrigerator, only take out what you need. It would also be wise to divide the dough into batches to increase efficiency and reduce food waste.
Here's everything you need to know about freezing bread dough. If you want your bread to be as tasty as possible, be sure to follow the tips presented in this guide. Good luck and happy baking!
Storing yeast dough in the refrigerator after rising
If our dough has “arrived”, then saving it after rising is quite simple; you only need to know a few rules.
Method 1
This method is suitable when you intend to store the dough for no more than a day:
- You need to mix it well to remove excess carbon dioxide from the dough.
- It is necessary to form a small piece of the mass and lightly grease it with vegetable oil. If there is a lot of product, then it is better to divide it into portions.
- We choose a container where we will put our dough. It should be deep, approximately 2 times the volume of the product, since in the refrigerator the dough will continue to rise, although this process will be a little slower. We will cover the top of the dishes with film or a plastic bag, and we need to make a hole so that our mass can breathe. This storage option is suitable when the yeast dough will be stored for no more than 1 day.
Method 2
The second method will be better if the dough requires more storage time. The principle of preparation for storage is repeated:
- Mix our dough.
- Divide into shares if there is a lot of product, and grease with a thin layer of oil.
- We place it in a plastic bag and put it in the coolest place in the refrigerator. Typically, this location is located at the back of your refrigerator. There should be enough space in the bag, because the product can tear the cellophane and “run away” onto the refrigerator shelves, as the mass will still increase in size.
Once chilled, the dough is easy to prepare for cooking. It is enough just to mix it well and put it in a warm place until it rises.
It is worth considering that butter dough has a shorter shelf life, unlike unleavened dough. Due to the large amount of sugar in it, the dough begins to ferment faster. Therefore, it is recommended to use the sweet mass on the day of preparation or the next.
Do I need to keep cottage cheese dough in the refrigerator?
I have already written several times about the chemical reactions that occur in baked goods when baking soda or baking powder is added to it. And about how pointless it is to “quench soda with vinegar . But, nevertheless, an avalanche of incorrect culinary advice pours out into the Internet space every day. It seems that in pursuit of views of publications and likes for them (and therefore monetization!), authors of blogs and channels literally “stamp” their publications, shamelessly copy them from each other, without thinking about the meaning of the recipe itself. The main thing is to give a catchy name like:
- Nobody Will Refuse This Pie! Apple Pie That Melts in Your Mouth! Simple and Delicious!
- Very Soft Curd Cookies with Milky Taste.
- Incredibly delicious cookies. Which just melts in your mouth.
Previously, there was no such abundance of advice and recipes. Culinary recipes tested in practice were carefully recorded in notebooks and carefully kept in almost every family. A successful purchase was considered to be the purchase of a special recipe book:
Recipe book and notebook with recipes Photo: Gennady Leonov, personal archive
Comparing the old Soviet-era recipes for curd dough stored in them with modern recipes from the Internet, I noticed another very common mistake. Most Internet culinary gurus insistently recommend keeping the kneaded dough, which contains baking soda or baking powder, in the refrigerator . Some for 20-30 minutes, some for an hour or more.
Some give mutually exclusive recommendations:
After an hour, we take our ball out of the refrigerator and leave it to warm up at room temperature for 10 minutes.
How do the authors motivate their actions?
The most common explanation:
The dough should rest well in the cold so that it becomes more elastic. Then it will roll out better and will not crumble.
Before considering what processes can happen to the dough in the refrigerator, it is necessary to check how far the dough can cool there.
Not wanting to risk the curd dough, I conducted an experiment with jars of water equal in weight:
- curd dough: flour 300 g + cottage cheese 200 g + sugar 150 g + butter 100 g + egg 60 g = 810 g;
- 0.55 liter jar with water: glass jar 280 g + water 520 g = 800 g.
The result of the experiment: after 30 minutes, the temperature difference between the water in the jar placed in the refrigerator and the water left on the table was only 3 degrees. In the refrigerator it cooled by 2.5, and on the table it warmed up by 0.5 degrees.
It is unlikely that such an insignificant difference in temperature can lead to real changes in the properties of the dough. And if you really want to get a colder dough, then it’s enough to use pre-chilled ingredients (cottage cheese, egg, vegetable oil).
But the time spent resting the dough in the refrigerator plays against baking.
From the moment you start mixing the ingredients, soda begins to interact with the acid contained in the cottage cheese, and the soda in the baking powder also reacts to the oxidizing agent contained in the bag. And, unlike yeast dough, in which even after kneading the yeast continues to develop, this reaction is a one-step process.
It doesn’t matter at what temperature the dough is kept, it is intensely saturated with carbon dioxide. Kneading, which is inevitable when forming products, will lead to the loss of the much-needed gas bubbles that give the baked goods their fluffiness.
- Thus, there is no need to keep curd dough containing soda in one form or another in the refrigerator. On the contrary, after kneading the dough, you need to start shaping and baking the products as quickly as possible.
Photo: Depositphotos
Many may doubt the correctness of my conclusions. To confirm them, I will quote from the book by R. P. Kengis “Homemade cakes, pastries, cookies, gingerbreads, pies” (3rd ed. M. Light and food industry, 1981):
Mix soda with flour. Acid is added to liquid or baked goods. When mixing flour with liquid, carbon dioxide begins to be released due to the interaction of soda with acid. Such dough cannot be kneaded for a long time, especially in warm conditions, as the gas will evaporate and the dough will become dense again. Therefore, it is prepared in a cool place and after kneading, it is immediately shaped and baked.
Nevertheless, the baked goods from authors on the Internet turn out great. Why?
Yes, because cottage cheese cookies, even without baking soda and baking powder, turn out very fluffy and airy. In addition, the recipes contain an increased content of soda or baking powder, as a result of which the oxidizing agent does not have time to completely neutralize them in 30 minutes. Complete neutralization of soda occurs already during the baking process, when the reaction of its thermal decomposition takes effect.
But excess baking soda or baking powder gives baked goods a specific flavor. Due to the fact that both in the process of neutralization of soda and in the process of its thermal decomposition, by-products of these reactions remain in the “dry residue” in the dough: from the first - sodium acetate, from the second - sodium carbonate.
And if sodium acetate is essentially a safe additive for humans E262, then sodium carbonate is nothing more than soda ash, which was previously used in everyday life for washing clothes. Naturally, an excess of it does not improve the taste of baked goods.
And of course, it is better to use a ready-made baking powder, the balanced composition of ingredients of which eliminates the presence of a large amount of sodium carbonate in home-baked goods.
As a bonus to the topic, I will offer you to watch a video with the completion of kneading the curd dough in a regular packaging bag. The advantage of this technique is that your hands do not stick to the dough, which eliminates the stiffness of the dough during its usual kneading, which occurs when adding flour.
Tags: baking powder, cottage cheese cookies, cottage cheese dough, recipe, baking soda, home baking, common mistakes
Storing yeast dough in the freezer
If you still haven’t found time for baking, and you won’t be able to use it in the next 2 days, then you won’t be able to store the product in the refrigerator, it will ferment and become unusable; it’s better to discard such dough. Therefore, freezing would be an excellent option for storing it. The dough contains products that tolerate low temperatures well, so even after defrosting the dough will not change its taste.
It is better to freeze a freshly prepared product, because dough that has been in the refrigerator for more than 12 hours loses its original qualities and may not rise at all.
The finished product must be stored correctly even in the freezer. Thus, according to GOST, homemade yeast dough can be stored for up to 90 days at temperatures from -15 to -18°C.
Dough purchased in a store can be stored longer, due to the presence of preservatives in its composition, for approximately 4-5 months at a temperature of -18°C and below. The temperature must be maintained and temperature fluctuations must be avoided.
The product should not be stored longer than expected, as the dough will freeze and lose its original qualities.
Preparing the dough for freezing:
- The mass needs to be freed from excess oxygen; to do this, thoroughly knead the dough.
- Divide the dough into portions and coat with oil. In this case, the dough should be made flat so that it freezes faster and then melts more quickly.
- Place the dough in an airtight container, and it is better to sprinkle the bottom of the container with flour so that it can be easily removed later. If there is not much space in the freezer, then the best option is to store the dough in bags, preferably special bags for freezing or vacuum bags.
If the dough is freshly prepared, it is better to put it in the refrigerator for half an hour to cool down. And then we transfer it to the freezer for further preservation.
Storing yeast dough at room temperature
At a temperature range of +20 to +25°C, the dough cannot be kept for a long time due to the fermentation processes occurring in it. Therefore, the shelf life of the finished product at room temperature is about two hours. If the dough sits for longer, it acquires a sour-bitter taste and becomes unsuitable for cooking.
Defrosting rules
- The frozen dough is placed in the refrigerator for several hours, usually about 2-3 hours, for it to thaw. Then knead the product with flour, put it in a bowl, cover with a towel and place in a warm place until the dough rises. The main thing is not to overdo it with flour; there should not be a lot of it, otherwise the dough will become “heavy”.
- The dough is defrosted at room temperature.
- The mass can be defrosted in the microwave. If your oven has a “Defrost” mode, then turn it on for about 4 minutes, the time will depend on the power of the device. But this type of defrosting is not entirely recommended, since there is a risk that the dough will overheat or dry out.
- Without removing the dough from the bag, place it in a container with warm water. In this case, the water must be changed as it cools.
- On heating devices (battery, heater, stove). With this method, the dough must be transferred to a pan, covered with a lid and placed on or near a heat source.
How to make bread and pizza dough?
- Kneading the dough . Flour, water, yeast and other additives are mixed and kneaded - crushed, beaten and generally subjected to all sorts of violence, as a result of which gluten or gluten develops in the dough, something like a protein web that holds the dough together.
- First rise . The dough is covered and left alone, allowing the yeast to work. The fermentation process is underway - the yeast begins to multiply, eating the sugars contained in the dough, and producing alcohol and carbon dioxide, which forms small bubbles inside the dough. In addition, enzymes work simultaneously with yeast, which make gluten bonds stronger.
- Second rise . The dough is kneaded to knock out carbon dioxide from it, it is given the shape of the future product, and allowed to rise again. During the shaping process, the yeast is redistributed within the dough, gaining access to new food deposits, and the dough rises again - this time more evenly. As with the first rise, gluten bonds also improve during the second rise.
- Bakery . The future bread or pizza is placed in the oven. In the first seconds, the bubbles inside the dough begin to increase sharply under the influence of heat, the gluten “web” stretches to its maximum, then the dough begins to harden and a crust appears.
- Cooling down . You really want to eat any bread right away, but in most cases the right thing to do is to let it cool a little on a wire rack. During this time, moisture is redistributed, and the dough is actually cooked due to residual heat (since the pizza is thin, this applies to it to a lesser extent).
I’m sure you know all of this, with the possible exception of words like “enzymes” and “fermentation,” without me. You also know that yeast multiplies best at the optimal temperature, and you let the dough rise in a warm place, which allows it to double in size in 30-40 minutes: this makes bread and pies faster.
But what if you do the opposite - put the dough in the refrigerator, causing the yeast to freeze, and extending the process of rising the dough for several days?
Who would even think of such nonsense, you ask. This is not nonsense at all, I will answer. This is a special culinary technique called "cold fermentation" and is used in the preparation of bread and other products, such as the classic margherita pizza. Let's figure out why cold fermentation is needed.
