One of the most annoying things that can happen is leaving your dough to rise, coming back to it after 2 hours, and seeing that it hasn’t risen one bit. And all of this time you were thinking about the amazing bread that you were going to eat. So why did this happen? Can you still bake it?
Unrisen bread dough can’t be baked, if you bake the bread will come out dense and gummy. In order to bake unrisen dough, you first need to add a leavening agent. A leavening agent, is an ingredient that can make your dough rise, and it can be yeast, sourdough starter, baking powder or baking soda.
If you are in a hurry to bake your bread you can quickly add 3 teaspoons of baking powder, or 3 teaspoons of baking soda and some lemon juice, buttermilk, or yogurt. Mix everything together, let it sit for 5 minutes, and you can put it in the oven, where your bread will rise.
This should quickly fix your bread. But, we also need to take a look at why this happened, white there is a good chance that you were unlucky, and you got some bad yeast, there are other possible problems, that are just as common.
Improper Kneading
The process of kneading dough is often overlooked, but it plays a crucial role in determining how well the dough will rise. To develop a strong gluten network that enables the dough to rise, it is recommended that bread dough be kneaded for at least 10 minutes.
Gluten and yeast are the two key components required for dough to rise. While gluten provides elasticity, allowing the dough to rise, yeast produces CO2, which aids in the rising process.
Although gluten is naturally present in flour, it must be kneaded to form an elastic network that can support the dough as it rises. Improper kneading can result in a weak network, causing the dough to collapse, while over-kneading can lead to a rigid gluten network that impedes the rising process.
In most cases kneading the dough for 10 minutes should be enough, but everybody kneads their dough in a different way. Some do it more actively while others move at a slower pace, some apply a lot of pressure, while others are gentler. So, timing for how long you knead the dough is not the best solution.
What you should be doing instead is checking the consistency of the dough using the windowpane test.
This is a very simple test that will tell you if you’ve knead your dough enough.
Take a small piece of dough and gently start stretching it out, and see if you can obtain a slightly transparent layer in the middle. If you can then you’ve kneaded the dough perfectly.
If the dough breaks too easily it means that you have to knead it a little more.
If the dough is too hard to stretch, and when you finally manage to stretch it breaks, it means that you’ve over kneaded and you need to start all over.
And here is a video showing how you can do this test:
Rising Temperature and Time
The dough can rise at almost any temperature, but the rate at which it will rise will drastically differ based on the temperature.
On average a bread dough should be left to rest for at least 2 hours at room temperature, between 68°F and 74°F (20°C and 23°C).
But this is just the average, and the time can increase or decrease depending on how much dough you have, what flour you’ve used, what is the hydration level, and of course the temperature of the room.
Due to all of those factors, it can be really hard to say an exact time, but on average 90 minutes should be enough. But there are two simple ways to figure out if your dough has spent enough time rising, or if you need to let it rest some more. Those two methods are called the poke test and the float test.
Poke Test
This is extremely simple, you just have to slightly poke your dough and see how it reacts.
- If the dough bounces back quickly it still needs some more time to rest.
- If the dough slowly gets back to its original shape, then it rested for long enough, and it’s time to use it to make some focaccia.
- If the dough doesn’t get back to its original shape, it means that it spent too much time resting, which is not ideal, but you can still make some good focacciawith it.
Float Test
Fill a glass with water and take a small piece of your dough and gently put it in the glass. If the dough floats, it means that it has risen for enough time and you can use it for baking. If the dough floats, it means that you either have to let it rise for a little longer or that it has risen for too long.
The float test is probably the simplest and most exact test, but unfortunately, it can’t tell you what is wrong with your dough.
Too Much Salt
Salt is an important ingredient when making dough. It makes the dough taste good, gives it a nice texture, and helps the gluten become strong. However, salt can also cause problems for the dough.
If salt and yeast touch each other directly, the yeast won’t work as well. Sometimes, the yeast won’t work at all. This is a big problem when making dough. So, when you’re making dough, it’s important to keep the salt and yeast away from each other.
One way to do this is to mix the salt with the flour and the yeast with the water before combining everything. This is what I do, and I’ve never had any problems with my dough. So, I suggest you try it too!
Bad Yeast
When making bread or other baked goods, it’s really important to use good yeast. But how do you know if your yeast is still good? Don’t worry, it’s easy to check!
First, get a glass and add some warm water to it. Then, mix in a teaspoon of yeast and a teaspoon of sugar. After 15 minutes, take a look at the surface of the water. If there’s a lot of foam, then your yeast is good to go! But if there’s not much foam, then it might be time to get some new yeast.
There are a lot of reasons why yeast can go bad. Sometimes it’s just too old, or it’s been kept in the wrong conditions. And sometimes, the yeast was just bad to begin with!
If you’re using dry yeast, it’s important to keep it in the container that you bought it in. And once you’ve opened it, try to use it within a few days. When you open the package, the yeast gets exposed to humidity, which starts to activate it. If you wait too long to use it, it might not work as well.
Fresh yeast is a little different from dry yeast. It has a shelf life of about 3 weeks, but the closer you get to the end of that time period, the less effective it will be. So, if you’re using fresh yeast, it’s best to buy it when you’re ready to use it that same week.
Remember, using good yeast is key to making delicious bread and baked goods!
Inactive Yeast
When making bread or other baked goods, it’s important to choose the right type of yeast. There are three types of yeast:
- Active Dry Yeast
- Instant Dry Yeast
- Fresh Yeast
Instant dry yeast is the easiest to use, because it comes in very small granules that can be mixed with all the ingredients from the start. This type of yeast will do its job without any extra steps.
However, if you’re using active dry yeast, you’ll need to activate it first. This type of yeast has slightly bigger granules, and if you mix it with all the ingredients from the start, it won’t be able to make the dough rise properly. To activate the yeast, you simply need to mix it with water until it dissolves completely.
Fresh yeast is also great, but it needs to be activated first before mixing it with the other ingredients. If you don’t activate the yeast first, your dough may still rise, but it will take a lot more time and won’t rise as well as it should.
It’s important to use the right type of yeast for your recipe and to follow the instructions carefully. Using the wrong type of yeast or failing to activate it properly can result in a dough that won’t rise properly, leading to a disappointing final product. So, choose the right type of yeast and activate it properly to ensure a perfect rise every time.
Water Temperature
Let’s talk about the temperature of water when using yeast! Yeast is very sensitive to high and low temperatures? There are three types of yeast, but regardless of which one you use, if you use hot water, it will make the yeast useless. This is because yeast will die at temperatures around 120-140°F (50-60°C). So, be careful not to use hot water when you’re working with yeast.
But, cold water can be just as bad for yeast? While yeast can survive freezing temperatures, the colder the water is, the slower the yeast will be. So, if you use cold water, the yeast will need a lot more time to make the dough rise.
So, what is the best temperature for water when using yeast? The temperature of the water should be around 100°F (38°C). At this temperature, the yeast will be as active as it can be, for the longest time possible.
The best way to measure the temperature of the water is to use a cooking thermometer. But if you don’t have one right now, you can use hot water from the sink. The hottest water that you can get from the sink can reach temperatures up to 120°F(50°C). So, it shouldn’t be hard to stay under that temperature.
It’s important to keep in mind that the temperature of the water plays a crucial role in the success of your dough. So, make sure to use water at the right temperature to ensure that your dough rises properly.
Bad Flour
While we typically don’t think of flour as something that can go bad, it absolutely can.
In general, flour has a shelf life of about 6 months. Whole wheat and gluten-free flour will usually go bad sooner.
But hose 6 months can be cut short depending on how you store it. If for example, you store it in the kitchen in the open, the shelf life is cut to about 3 moths, due to the humidity.
How to Fix a Dough That Didn’t Rise
So those are the 7 possible things that could stop your bread dough from rising. Now let’s see how you can fix them.
Rising Temperature
The first thing that I would recommend you to do is to move it somewhere warmer. There is a good chance that your dough is perfectly fine, but the temperature of the room is slowing it down.
Kneading
If that doesn’t work, you should take a piece of the dough and do the windowpane test. If that doesn’t work you should take the dough out of the bowl and knead it some more. If you didn’t knead the dough properly from the start this should fix that problem. Just make sure to use the windowpane test to know when to stop.
Yeast
If the elasticity of the dough isn’t the problem then you should see if the yeast was good. Take a teaspoon of yeast, and one of the sugar and mix them together with some warm water. If after 15 minutes there is no foam or any type of bubble then the yeast was most likely bad.
At this point, you have two options, but both of them require you to get some new yeast.
The first option is to mix the new yeast with some water and then mix that water with the dough that you have. After you mix everything together add some flour until you reach the right consistency. The yeast that you used previously won’t affect the new one at all.
The second option is to start from scratch. And this is what I would recommend you to do. Using the previous method won’t save you any time, and it will most likely mess up the proportions of the recipe.
Water
If you believe that the water that you used was too hot, then you can either mix in some new yeast, or make a new dough.
Can I Still Use the Dough if It Didn’t Rise?
A dough that didn’t rise is not a bad or unhealthy dough, so yes you can still use it. But, You first have to add a leavening agent. That leavening agent can be baking soda or baking powder, after which you can put it in the oven right after.
Or, if you want to try to make your bread rise again, you can try to add some more yeast.
Final Thoughts
In the endI will leave you with a short recap of the things we discussed in the article:
- Test your yeast before using it, you can do this by mixing a teaspoon of yeast, with one teaspoon of sugar in a glass with water, if there are no bubbles after 15 minutes, the yeast is bad.
- Activate your yeast before using it, you can do this by dissolving it in water.
- The temperature of the water wouldn’t be higher than 120°F (50°C), ideally, you want the temperature to be around 100°F (38°C)
- Don’t mix salt and yeast, mix the yeast with water, and the salt with the flour, then you can mix them all together
- Use Pastry Flour (also known as 00 flour), with at least 13% protein.
- Knead your dough until it can pass the windowpane test
- On average, a bread dough should be left to rest for at least 2 hours, at temperature between 68°F and 74°F (20°C and 23°C).