A bread dough rescue with WilliamB

Some weeks ago, reader WilliamB messaged me with a bread problem (from a Bernard Clayton brioche recipe).

I did my best to help, and we had a pretty extensive conversation with many photo updates about how the bread rescue was going.

WilliamB suggested that this might make a fun blog post, so today I’m collating my collection of words and photos from the conversation!

The initial problem is that the dough did not rise at all. I am unsurprised by this, because in Clayton’s recipe, the eggs and butter are mixed straight into the dry yeast/flour mixture.

I presume that this results in the yeast granules getting coated in a layer of grease, which makes them unable to dissolve and grow.

WilliamB looked up some other brioche recipes and most of those involved making a soft dough or sponge first, and THEN mixing in all the heavy eggs and yeast. That probably works way better. What the heck, Mr. Clayton??

Given that the dough involved a lot of butter and eggs, it was worth some rescue effort. Butter and eggs ain’t cheap these days!

I remembered a time, years ago, when I made a batch of roll dough and it didn’t rise at all. In that instance, the problem was that I’d completely forgotten to add the yeast.

WHOOPS.

In our text convo, I shared that in order to remedy the problem, I’d made a tiny batch of soft dough with the full amount of yeast added, and then I’d kneaded it into my unyeasted dough.

I let the newly yeasted dough rise again, proceeded with the recipe, and all was well.

So, I suggested that WilliamB try something similar.

It was tough going at first.

A little better now:

WilliamB let the dough sit for a little while, and then did more working-in by hand.

You can see the lumps of the old unrisen dough in there.

After another 15-minute rest, the dough lumps were a little softer.

And then the Kitchen-Aid came in handy.

WilliamB said, “This looks auspicious.” and I agreed.

Time for an official rise.

WilliamB opted for a braid with this dough:

And in a move understood by many of us here, the covering of choice was a torn produce bag, even though many bread recipes suggest using a fresh piece of plastic wrap!

Time to bake!

And here’s the finished product.

Here’s what the inside turned out like. This picture makes me hungry!

The verdict from WilliamB: a bit bland, but mostly a success.

Now, this batch of rescued dough was actually the second failed brioche dough (!!!)

But, cheered by the first rescue, WilliamB attempted a rescue of the other batch.

This one was stiff enough that it needed to be chopped.

In the midst of the remixing attempt:

Amazingly, the dough ended up like this:

And after a successful rise, it got shaped into a loaf.

Here’s how it looked once it was baked.

A picture of the inside:

WilliamB’s review: a good texture and a better flavor than the braided loaf.

So overall, I (Kristen) think this was quite a successful bread rescue! The ingredients used for the rescue were very cheap, and they resulted in a save that kept a buttery, eggy dough out of the trash.

In a case like this, I think an experimental rescue is really worth a try, as long as you have the time. The worst that could have happened is that WilliamB would have wasted a bit of flour and yeast.

And what DID happen is the best-case scenario: the dough was turned into something very edible.

This is exactly the thinking behind my post “Will it work? Try it and see!”

When you have a low-stakes situation (WilliamB couldn’t have really made this dough worse than it was!), experimentation is usually a really good choice.

So. There you have it: a pictorial tour through a real-life bread rescue. 🙂

Thank you, WilliamB!

P.S. WilliamB was in a previous Meet a Reader feature; click here to read it.