HOW TO WORK WITH YEAST IN WINTER

 

Hi!

Firstly, my apologies for not updating this blog for quite some time. Today I am posting something very crucial for all the people who love working with yeast. 

Yeast is so friendly and fun to work with in the summers, but it can be quite a challenge to work with in the winters, and I faced the same problem when I lived in North India. Hence, I thought of writing this post!

When the temperature drops, the yeast takes a long time to rise, and since I faced that problem, I started asking my blogger friends, on what methods they used to work with the yeast, during the winters.

I got to know of many options that even I was using, but they did not help me to my satisfaction. For example, keeping the dough near the gas stove or preheating the oven, etc.

I then wrote to Katy of Food For Hungry Soul, stating my agony with the yeast, and she was kind enough to write back to me in great detail. 

Thanks so much, Katy. I am putting down here all the suggestions that she had mentioned in her email,  for everyone to read. 

1. The first thing is to turn the pilot light on in your oven and set a steaming hot bowl of water in the bottom of your oven. Put the covered bowl of dough on a rack over the bowl of water and close the oven door. Enough warmth should be generated between the bowl of water (which may have to be changed a couple of times during the rising time, to keep it hot) and the  dough bowl, to raise the dough.The dough may be a little moist on the bottom from using this method, but if it's the first rising, it should be okay, as one can add more flour when one kneads it for the second rising. 
2. The second method is to gently warm your oven on the lowest possible heat setting and then immediately turn the oven off. Put your covered dough into the oven and close the door. This method can be a little tricky if one has let their oven heat for too long, but it generally works well if one is attentive.
3. The last method is a variation of the first method, especially for the second rise. Set your prepared pan of bread dough over (but not in) a bowl of hot water on the stovetop (or on the kitchen table in the direct sunlight), cover it so that the covering does not touch the dough (you may have to make a tent somehow). Use tall drinking glasses and a clean white dish towel. If your pan of prepared dough is too small to sit atop the pan of water, set a cooling rack over the pan of hot water and then your pan of prepared dough.

I liked Katy’s idea of using warm water bath, but since it required replacing the water over and over again, as it would cool down fast in the winter. And, since  patience isn’t my biggest virtue in the harsh winter months, my hunt for a method that would appeal to me, continued!

After understanding Katy’s suggestions, I decided to spend some time reading the manual of my microwave oven. Now, I do have a good microwave oven which not only has a convection mode but also has modes for steaming, grilling and broiling! 

While reading the manual I realised that while using the convection mode, the microwave oven can be set in a temperature range for a time period of my choice. I felt that this could solve my problem, and hence, for a trial run, I set the oven in  a temperature range of 40C-50C and heated it for half an hour, after which I checked it’s temperature using an oven thermometer, and was extremely happy to see that it had attained the desired temperature of around 42-43C.

Using the above mentioned method of setting the temperature of the oven, I made the sweet chelsea buns, for which after kneading the bun dough, I kept it covered to rise inside the oven which was set in the temperature range 40-50C for an hour.

The result was fantastic, the dough had risen in around 35mins! This method is very safe and convenient as there is no chance that the oven will get overheated, as the temperature is set. And, at the same time, it does not need one to be on a constant vigilance. 

Once one has kept the yeasted dough to rise inside the oven at a fixed temperature, and has set the timer, one is free to complete other chores. It is a great method for people like me who lose their patience in front of the harsh winters.

One could use any one of the methods mentioned above as per their convenience, to work with the yeast during the harsh winters. I hope all the yeast lovers would find these methods easy to try, and at the same time if you have any further suggestions, please do leave me a note in the comment box. 

In future, I will surely update this post with more methods that I get to know.

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