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When to freeze dough

Your article regarding freezing dough for later use was very timely for me. However, I got slightly confused.

When setting up the test, it says the three types of dough were tried both right after mixing and after the first rise. However, it wasn't clear to me whether there was a conclusion on that variable. The way it's written, it seems there was no difference which, if so, tells me that freezing it right after mixing makes the most sense.

Can someone clarify? Thank you!

Mitch


Comments

  • Hi Mitchell - I understand your point - the article *is* a bit confusing. What we found was that there wasn't a huge difference in texture and flavor between dough that was frozen without any rise vs. dough that was frozen after the first rise. However, there was a difference in practicality and time saving. For dinner rolls or pizza dough, it's best to allow the dough to rise, shape, and then freeze because it's faster to shape the dough while it's at room temperature then wait for a large quantity of dough to thaw and come to room temperature before shaping. Formed, frozen rolls will thaw and come to room temperature pretty quickly. On the other hand, for bread dough, it's not really practical to freeze unbaked dough regardless of whether you freeze it without a rise or after it's first rise. That's because it needs to thaw overnight in the fridge and then takes about 3 hours to come to room temperature. In that amount of time you could just make it from scratch the same day. So, yes, there's not a huge difference in quality between freezing before or after the first rise but, practically, it's best to freeze dinner rolls and pizza dough after the first rise. Hope this clears it up. Thanks, Lynn C.

  • It does. Thanks!

    I see the point regarding the lack of time savings. For me, there is a big difference between active time and inactive time (or messy time vs not as messy time). I'm a big fan of baking bread boules in a my enameled cast iron dutch oven. I also work from my home office. Putting thawed dough in the dutch oven and letting it come to temperature and do its final rise before putting it in the oven (30 minutes covered at 450, drop to 375, uncovered until ~200F internal temp), makes delicious, artisnal-ish, fresh baked bread a weekday breeze versus mixing, kneading, cleaning, etc.

    Thanks again!

    Mitch

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