Melissa Langenback – thebakersguide.com, Williamstown, MA

A couple months ago I was searching around the internet for interesting local things that were happening around me, when I stumbled across the website of Brod and Taylor in the final stages of product development for a home bread proofing box. I thought it might be fun to try and contacted them. I found the concept of their product to be so interesting and well, they are right in my own backyard. Well, long story short, we met and had a lovely talk about bread and the trouble home bakers have with creating an ideal dough rising environment (especially during our long New England winters). Since then we have been in contact and he asked if I would be interested in helping him film some product demos/bread making videos for his website. I thought sure, it might be fun to step out of my comfort zone and try something different.

I am always being asked by students where the best spot is to allow your dough to ferment and proof. It is during our long and cold New England winters that this challenge of finding a warm spot comes into play. So, I read a little bit on the product and saw that it had a temperature range that went as low as 70 degrees and as high as 120, which to me is too high for fermentation, but the site said you could do other things in the higher temperature range, like melt chocolate or make yogurt. Okay, so it has potential to be multi-purpose, that’s a good thing. The real kicker for me was that when I went to their contact page I found out they are based out of the exact same town as me! That was my cincher I had to at least try and meet with the product developer, I mean we are practically neighbors. Well, long story short we met at the local coffee shop and had a nice chat about the product and bread in general, and he offered to let me try one of the proofers when the demo ones came in.

Since we are basically neighbors he asked if I might be interested in helping him with some product demo videos. I thought it would be fun to be filmed in a kind of professional setting with some serious equipment and editing, instead of just my camera set up on a tripod in my sunroom. This was my first time getting to actually see the product and try it out, now mind you it was one of the hottest weeks during the summer, butter was literally melting on my counter. Luckily, his house was air conditioned, so we could get a feel for how the proofer would perform on cooler days. I really liked the fact that they took into account not only warmth, but humidity as well when designing the proofer. Dough really does like a slightly warm and moist environment to ferment in.

This past weekend it was chilly and raining outside, absolutely perfect day for hanging inside with my son and baking bread. Michael, the proofer inventor, wanted me to develop a recipe or two for the product manual that would clearly explain how to use the proofer when making bread. I decided to start with something a little simple and went with country wheat sandwich bread. It isn’t a high ratio of whole wheat flour so it is still pretty easy to knead and I figured it was bread that you would want to rise at a slightly warmer temperature. The first thing I did was plug in the proofer, set it to 85 degrees, and poured a small amount of water into the tray. I then made my wheat dough. I have these great dough rising containers that have red marks on them at the 1 and 2 quart level, so I placed my dough in a lightly oiled dough rising container. That way I could see exactly when it had doubled in volume. I wanted to be able to give an accurate time in the recipe and since I can tell people what temperature to set their proofer on, there shouldn’t be too much difference in the rise time between batches. Of course there will be slight difference depending on how active your yeast is and your elevation, but as a whole it should be in a much tighter range than without that temperature control. I set a timer for one hour, but it wasn’t doubled by then. I gave it 30 more minutes and it was perfect. Usually in the dead of winter I am lucky to have dough rise in two hours, so I was happy with the result, and I guess if you want it done a bit faster you can up the temperature a bit. I really don’t like to rush my dough’s rise, because I think it hurts the flavor of the finished product, but it is nice when it rises in a timely fashion. I shaped the dough into a loaf and placed into a greased pan, then put it right back into the proofer for its final rise. It was nice not to have to worry about covering the dough with plastic wrap. I could just stick it into the proofer and let it rise.

I am going to continue to use the proofer in the coming weeks and see how it changes my bread baking. I am really interested in using it to warm dough that I have placed in the refrigerator for an overnight fermentation. It can take a long time for a batch of refrigerator temp dough to come up to room temperature, so I think it is going to be a really handy tool, since I refrigerate a lot of dough. I think that Brød and Taylor have come up with a really useful and innovative tool for the home bread baker, which helps to solve a problem that many of us are faced with when baking bread.

Star of our YouTube and website videos, Melissa is both a superb baker and professional teacher of the craft. She’s even included a recipe for Cinnamon Swirl bread that integrates the Folding Proofer. Visit her site for that recipe and more at thebakersguide.com.