Proof Reading: March 6th, 2024
This week: Pre-shaping isn’t fully necessary, and thoughts on dough development.
Did you know you don’t have to pre-shape your bread before shaping it?
Pre-shaping provides additional form and tension to your dough and is common at bakeries where bakers are cutting dozens of loaves from one giant dough mass. But it’s not absolutely necessary in bakeries, let alone at home when you’re dumping round dough from a round bowl and are already starting with a round form.
At Proof Bakery in Mesa, AZ, they use a hydraulic dough divider to divide their dough mass and use an elaborate shaping technique to add tension to otherwise relaxed dough:
Another approach is to degas a blob of dough before processing it to allow for additional tension, as shown here:
Skipping the pre-shape works best for doughs that have been fully developed up front, either mechanically or by hand, and left to relax for the duration of bulk fermentation.
Give it a try!
Speaking of Gluten Development…
I’ve updated my post about dough development to provide some additional clarity around the slap-and-fold technique. The key takeaway: It’s ok if your dough breaks apart while you’re developing it, as this is happening all the time in a mixer anyway. It’ll come back together in time to form a cohesive mass.
Elsewhere, I’ve updated my Beginner Ambient Sourdough Bread post to reflect this new guidance, along with some updated timings that should work better for most people.