flour girl: falling flat
Sunday evening I was caught up in a baking frenzy. Frenzy.
It was mostly to bring down my blood pressure after driving all across the city on terribly snowy roads to get all my Christmas shopping done. When you hate driving in snow, detest shopping, and loathe the mall at Christmas it makes for a stress-inducing afternoon.
So I set to whipping up 2 different types of cookies and my favourite sprouted grain bread. Maybe it was the cloud of flour in the air that hindered my awareness, or possibly the fact that the oven was working overtime and the kitchen was heating up like a sauna but before I knew it my lovely rising dough fell flat 
Flat as a pancake.
Normally this wouldn’t worry me all that much, but Matt was bringing this bread to a staff party and I was hoping to impress with my baking skills. An over-risen dough bakes to be tough and gummy– not very impressive.
So if you ever get yourself in the situation where you forget about your dough and come back to find it looking like it was steamrolled, never fear it can be saved.
How to fix an over-risen dough:
1. Punch down the dough.
2. Knead the dough by hand for ~2 minutes to remove all air bubbles.
3. Shape the dough into the desired form, spray with oil, and cover with a clean tea towel.
4. Place the dough into a oven warm oven to proof. (Pre-heat the oven to the lowest temperature setting you have and then turn it off before placing the dough inside. I like to keep the oven door open a crack so that the bread doesn’t get too warm.)
5. Depending on the warmth of the environment, the dough should rise again within 1-2 hours.
6. If the dough doesn’t rise then the yeast is dead and it probably can’t be salvaged. Roll out the dough thinly onto a floured surfaced, cut into squares, and bake. Congratulations you have made crackers.
Luckily I was able to salvage this dough. After only 20 minutes in a warm oven it rose beautifully once again:
And after 45 minutes of baking voila, a beautiful loaf of sprouted grain sandwich bread.
Ezekiel, eat your heart out.
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- e-mail: samanthaamenzies@gmail.com
- Samantha Menzies is an opinionated young firecracker who just happens to enjoy distracting web surfers with chronicles of her mildly entertaining daily pursuits.
Thanks for the tips! I am not a baker though
Oh my gosh that bread looks amazing! You should open up a bakery… and ship to DC.
Good thing you know these tricks or you would have been more stressed!
No kidding. I would’ve never guessed. When it pancaked like that, I would’ve tossed it. Now I know! …for when bread doesn’t intimidate me and I’ll start making my own