Hot, cold, sauna?

Yeast dough is a diva. She wants to be pampered and will punish you for temperature changes in the kitchen, the oven or the stand mixer. The grande dame of doughs becomes particularly temperamental when she appears as pizza dough or laminated pastry dough. You never quite know how it’s going to turn out.

So which is better: cold or warm? It depends. Brilliant, I hear you say.

Warm:

Yeast dough feels wonderfully at home in cosy warmth, where it grows and flourishes. Warm ingredients such as milk, water and eggs, plus soft butter. And then: let it rest! From around 30°C, it really begins to thrive.

Careful! At 40°C and above, it gets too hot and the yeast dies! It isn’t particularly fond of fermenting away for too long either, so don’t forget about it. Check every now and then to see whether it has doubled in size.

It’s especially happy if you knock it back once along the way — think of it as a massage during its spa treatment — and then let it rise again. The result will be a wonderfully soft, rich yeast dough.

Cold:

Yeast dough likes the cold, too. Just like me. And so do French brioche, Bohemian potica and pizza dough, for example. Cold milk or water, eggs and cooler butter — and even a tablespoon of lard at the end! — followed by a slow overnight rise in the fridge: cold-fermented yeast dough absolutely loves all of that.

For pizza, you can even put the water in the freezer until it just begins to freeze, then let the stand mixer run slowly but for a long time so the dough doesn’t warm up. This gives you a light, airy dough with large, delicate air pockets.

French brioche, Buchteln and Bohemian pastries reward a cool rise in the fridge and repeated folding rather than one brutal knock-back with their characteristic elongated, extra-fine crumb structure and a wonderfully delicate flavour.

Extra cold:

Careful! Chilling the dough below normal refrigerator temperature or putting it in the freezer stops it from rising. That’s why freshly made yeast dough can also be frozen very well. When you need it, let it thaw — always well covered — overnight in the fridge or for a few hours on the worktop, depending on the room temperature. Then shape it and leave it to rise.

Good to know!

As a general rule, never let yeast dough dry out! Once a crust forms, it can no longer rise properly. A damp cloth does the job, but I prefer a tip from Paul Hollywood, the grand master of bakers: place a clean, new, unused (!!), transparent plastic bag — unscented and completely free of anything else — over the bowl of dough, or slide the entire baking tray inside one.

If you use this method, make sure there is plenty of air inside the bag and that the plastic never touches the dough directly. That would be unhygienic, and the dough would stick to it as well. The important thing is that the dough never dries out, whether it is rising in the bowl or already shaped on the baking tray.

Have fun with our diva! When everything works, the result really is one of the most wonderful things. And that smell!!!