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🍞 A dough temperature wake-up call

Published about 20 hours ago • 2 min read

A dough temperature wake-up call

Was it seriously 90F in my kitchen the other day?

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Yes, yes, it was. And I really hope it was an outlier of a day.

But that first truly warm day of Spring is always a wake-up call for me to stop warming the mixing water and start cooling it instead.

In fact, I divided my latest batch of bread dough a little earlier (2hr 50m), and it had a much better structure, making for easy-peasy dividing and shaping.

(If you're curious, this is my Rustico—pg 195—from my cookbook!)

But that wake-up call also prompted me to review my temperature guide on the website. Probably the most popular guide, and for a good reason: temperature is everything with sourdough 🙂

Read on!

In this week's newsletter:

  • Guide: Revised guide to dough temperature
  • Recipes: Chocolate chip cookies; ciambella (lemon cake); light deli rye; cinnamon toast cookies
  • Baking Help: 85°F is warmer than you think for your dough...
  • Sourdough Links: How the USA ruined bread (!?); Guide to the best pizzerias in the world

💡 Why temperature is so important in baking

I've gone through and overhauled my guide on all things dough temperature with new guidance on:
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  • How to adjust if your dough is too cold or too warm after mixing
  • How to deal with very warm kitchen temperatures
  • A little of the science behind fermentation and temperature
  • Plus, my water temperature calculator is now directly in the post

🍪 Spring chocolate chip cookies

These cookies are pretty much perfect at any time of the year.

🍋 Sourdough Ciambella

If there was any cake I'd be guilty of perhaps making too much, it's this Italian staple. But trust me, once you have it once, you'll 💯 understand.

🍞 Light deli rye bread

An easy-to-make and light loaf perfect for a ham and cheese sandwich on your next picnic.

🍞 Cinnamon toast cookies

I'm not sure there's an easier cookie to make, but even if there was, this is my favorite back-pocket recipe (and the dough stores so well in the freezer!).

Join Me In The Baker's Corner

Come chat bread, get baking perks (like my tools for making formulas, videos, and more), and join the community ✨

💬 Member Discussion of the Week

I tried making your Beginner's Sourdough, and the bread didn't rise. My kitchen runs cool, so I used my oven's "dough proofing" cycle at 85°F for the levain and bulk fermentation, but followed your timetable. When I went to preshape, the dough was puddly — it wouldn't hold a shape at all. What went wrong?

85°F is warmer than it sounds. At that temperature, fermentation accelerates significantly, so following the same timetable I use at 78°F likely pushed your dough well past where it needed to be. The "puddly" texture at preshape is a telltale sign of overfermentation—the gluten structure has started to break down. If you want to keep using that proofing cycle, you have a few options: toggle the oven on and off to bring the temperature closer to 78°F, use cooler water when you mix so your final dough temperature comes in lower, or reduce the amount of levain in the formula to slow things down. The key takeaway is that temperature and time are always linked. Change one, and you have to adjust the other.

🛟 2 Ways I Can Help You Today

📙 What I'm Reading and Listening To

Happy baking!

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Thank you for subscribing 🩶. Sent from Maurizio at The Perfect Loaf, 8100 Wyoming Blvd NE Ste M4, #343, Albuquerque, NM 87113.
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The Perfect Loaf 🍞

Maurizio Leo

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