I’ve been baking more bread since I discovered that Heritage Wheat doesn’t bother my digestive system. Recipes cavalierly throw around “rise until double” and I have been bumbling along hoping I wait long enough (but not too long) for the dough to rise to “double”. So what is double? To see, I blew up three balloons, one 5” in diameter, one that was double the first in volume (6.3” in diameter), and one that was double the first in diameter (10” in diameter). Hm. The double in volume seems smaller than my successful proofs, and I have never achieved the size of double in diameter.

So I went looking for an explanation and found this article. The author goes much farther into mathematical models, but at the end, suggests a better method: the finger poke method. With practice, one should be able to tell how long to prove dough by pressing on it with a finger and seeing how the dough reacts. If the dough springs back, it needs more proving. If the dough stays depressed, it is over-proved. Somewhere in the middle is the right time.

I now can’t get the Pillsbury Doughboy image out of my head. If this method is correct, he was under-proved, by the way. (Don’t know what I’m talking about? Here you go.)