I enjoy baking very much, especially bread.  My problem, however is that in order for bread dough to rise properly, it has to sit and rest at a room temperature of between 75 and 90 degrees.  It also has to be somewhat humid.   I don’t know about you, but I’m sweating bullets with that high of a temp combined with humidity.   Also, imagine the high heating bill?   So, basically I stopped baking bread for a few years due to the fact that I couldn’t keep my kitchen warm enough.  This is especially true in winter.

Recently, I’ve gotten into baking bread again because I am sick of the list of garbage ingredients that store-bought bread contains.  Ever notice the paragraph of ingredients on a store-bought loaf of bread?  It’s disgusting and totally unnecessary!  All that’s really needed is flour, yeast, water, and a little sugar to help the yeast.  Why there’s a paragraph of ingredients is beyond my comprehension.

The other main reason I have started baking bread again is that I’ve found a way to proof the dough with remarkable results without heating the house.  Introducing the Instant Pot.  I know I mentioned the Instant Pot in my post about making homemade yogurt,  but it’s the yogurt setting on the instant Pot that is the perfect setting for proofing dough,  It creates the perfect environment for both temperature and humidity needed for dough proofing.

First, you need to have an Instant pot with the Yogurt setting.  Most of them do come with a yogurt setting but some of them don’t, so be careful when purchasing one.   An Instant Pot is a wonderful tool to have in the kitchen.  I use mine to make pot roast, chicken, rice, broth, to cook dry beans in only a half hour as opposed to hours over the stove, soft or hard cooked eggs, pasta sauce, proofing dough for pizza and there are many other uses.  It comes with a recipe book and aside from that, there are a ton of recipes on the internet.

So here’s a pic of dough ready to be proofed:

And here is a picture of the dough after proofing

See the difference?  See how it has just about doubled in size?  that’s the difference the right temperature and humidity makes when baking bread.  The bread, as a result will come out light and less dense.

That’s it for now.

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Bon Appetit!