Hey bakers! I have a question for anyone who is kind enough to answer! Where is your favorite warm spot to let your dough rise (when you're specifically looking for a warm place)?
Is it on top of your fridge? In your turned-off oven? Next to a heater? Something else?
I'm doing a little research for my blog and I'd love to know where home bakers go when they're looking for a warm spot in their house. Thanks so much in advance for your answers!
Best,
Grant
P.S. I know cold-proofing is amazing - but that's a topic for a different day.
Oven heated to about 90F.
Brod and Taylor when I want a specific temperature.
Oven with the oven light on when I'm not worried about being precise.
Toaster oven on proof setting (80 degrees)
Brot and Taylor proofing box. It would be challenging and slow to try to bake sourdough without it during a Canadian winter.
Benny
Most often inside our over-the-stove microwave, with the light that illuminates the cook surface turned on. It gets to 82-84F.
And on rare occasion in the garage, when it's ~ 85-90F and I need to use the microwave. 😉
My dehydrator which I only got this Christmas is now my go-to spot for dough-rising. At first I was worried that its lowest temperature of 95F was too high, but that hasn't been a problem. It is, unfortunately, too small to fit my sheet pans, roasting pan, or pizza pans.
Other warm places I use:
- My oven, after heating it up for about 10 minutes at 145F and then shutting it off and leaving the light on.
- If it's summer, outside.
- Our smallest bathroom with the heat cranked up.
- Our larger bathroom in which my husband has already cranked up the heat to brew beer or wine.
- A covered roasting pan with a mug of occasionally refreshed just-heated-to-boiling water.
- A pot of water with a sous-vide heating the water.
This is an amazing set up!
Not very pretty, but a cooler with an Inkbird controller and seed germination (warming) mat.
Where the modem and DVR reside. Typically, it is 10º warmer than room temp inside the glass doored cabinet.
My gas oven with the light on equilibrates to ≈85 °F.
In the summer, my garage gets hot enough even early in the morning to be perfect for bread, croissants, etc.
But I need a new solution now that it's fall.