Why do you cover rising bread

Other ideas include:. Your options are more limited for the second rise because your dough will be shaped. Here is where plastic wrap becomes very useful, but you can still use the oven, the microwave, or a damp towel.

Luckily there are quite a few different tricks you can try to prevent this from happening. Most recipes will advise you to grease your dough before the first rise. The benefits of this are twofold. Taking inspiration from this, you can lightly mist your covering with oil to stop the dough from sticking. Simply spray one side of the plastic with oil. A good alternative is flour. Lightly dusting the towel with flour will have a similar effect to oil and prevent sticking.

Rice flour is the best flour to use for this. Another idea is to remove the cover for the last half an hour of the rise. A dough-covered towel can be tricky to clean and if you use the wrong technique this can make the problem even worse. To clean towels that are covered in dough never use hot water. Hot water strengthens the gluten in the dough and makes it even stickier. Instead, either let it soak in cold water for 10 minutes or let the dough dry and then crumble it off with your hands.

The elasticated edge stretches around even big bowls, providing a snug fit. I've been letting my pizza dough rise in reusable plastic containers with plastic lids I coat the bottom and sides of the containers with a bit of olive oil so that the dough doesn't stick. Seems to work just fine, and it's incredibly easy. Personally, I spray plastic wrap with oil, then use that. Doesn't stick, even with very high hydration doughs, and completely prevents the dough from drying.

Another method is to use a food-grade plastic bag. Tie it shut inflated with air so it isn't touching the dough. The humidity in the bag will stay high enough to prevent drying, and since the dough doesn't touch the bag, the bag stays clean and can be re-used. The food-safe bag is the most environmentally friendly washing cloths isn't so environmentally friendly. I just put a sheet of baking paper on top of the mixing bowl in which I mixed the dough and rest a wooden cutting board which I used to knead the dough.

I'll use the baking paper in the baking tin later, so nothing got wasted and there's no extra mess :. I use shower caps especially kept for this purpose and just lightly oil the inside of them. Either normal ones or the thin, clear sort you get in hotels work fine and saves the hassle and waste of clingfilm. I prefer not to introduce plastic into my baking where feasible. I spend time and money and love on baking, using nice organic flours and all natural ingedients, and the plastic shower cap, although very effective, makes me think there are unhealthy hydrocarbons dripping on to the lovely dough.

I vote for clean white flour sack lint free tea towels, dampened aNd even re dampened if needed. I like the dinner plate over the bowl technique too. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. What should I cover bread dough with while it's rising? Ask Question. Asked 9 years, 8 months ago. Active 1 year, 1 month ago.

The longer dough rises up to a point , the more flavor it develops. Conversely, dough that rises too quickly produces bread with flat flavor. Nail the sweet spot — warm enough to rise at a decent rate, yet cool enough to develop flavor — and you're golden.

Interested in the science behind the data? See our blog post: Desired dough temperature. This temperature range gives yeast dough enough time to develop flavor while still keeping the whole process within a manageable timeframe. And even if you're down South, you might have trouble keeping your kitchen in the high 70s — whether because it's winter, or you've got the AC going.

Bonus: It folds down for easy storage. But handy though it is, you certainly don't need a countertop proofer to raise your yeast dough.

There are plenty of other ways to provide your rising dough with the warm, humid environment yeast loves. Why not just drape a towel over your bowl of rising dough, like your great-grandma did? Because your goal is to create an environment that's not only warm but humid. Why humid? Moisture keeps the skin of the dough supple and soft, promoting a better rise. A cotton towel allows moisture to escape; plastic or even better, a snap-on lid keeps moisture trapped.

I like to use the food-safe plastic dough-rising bucket pictured above. Not only does it create a moisture-trapping environment, but its markings help me gauge when the dough has doubled in size.

Many bakers like to preheat their oven briefly, turn it off, then place the bowl of dough within. It takes about an hour for my oven, with just the light on, to go from cool room temperature to optimum yeast dough-rising temperature. So instead, I simply turn on the oven light, and the temperature within gradually rises.

I put the dough in, leave the light on for another 30 minutes or so, then turn the light off, allowing the temperature inside to reverse its course. Of course, your oven and your kitchen will yield different results. But I urge you to take the time to see how effectively just a simple lightbulb can heat your oven, creating the perfect dough-rising environment. Wait about 45 minutes for the microwave's interior to gradually cool down some , and exchange the bowl of water for your uncovered bowl of dough; quickly close the door.

The interior temperature of your microwave will start out in the mid- to lows and will drop down through the 70s over the next hour or so, providing an ideal rising environment. If you're in a hurry and forgot to boil the water ahead of time, just use a smaller amount of water and bring it barely to a boil.

The microwave's temperature will drop more quickly into yeast's comfort zone though it also won't linger in that zone as long, either. Word to the wise: Boiling water can be dangerous, of course, so be very careful moving it out of the microwave. Don't decide to add a tea bag or otherwise disturb it until it's calmed down and stopped bubbling!

So far it's all been about dough's first rise in the bowl. What about once it's shaped and in its loaf pan? Most methods work just as well for shaped dough as for dough in the bowl.

The exception: your oven. Since you'll want to preheat your oven well before the bread is ready to bake, you don't want your loaf pan inside — even though you swear you won't forget and will take it out before turning the oven on. Been there, done that So place your pan in some other warm spot you've identified. If it's not a humid environment e. PJ bakes and writes from her home on Cape Cod, where she enjoys beach-walking, her husband, three dogs, and really good food!

We had just relocated to Middle Tennessee when I realized that baking bread in winter would be a challenge.