I got a New Toy. If we were roomies, you would have been hearing me talk about a toy like this New Toy for, like, years. You'd be all, “Nicole, zip it! It doesn't exist!”
But now it does. It does! It's a home bread proofer! We've talked about all kinds of tricks to get your gluten-free yeast bread to rise. Now, there's finally another way.
As soon as I heard about it, I started to harass the Brod & Taylor people into sending me one to test. And they did. For free, likely so I'd talk to you about it. But I want you to know about it so you might have options.
There is one hitch. It's quite spendy.
Like 148 bucks spendy. *ouch* I'm pretty much hoping it's going to come down in price. Or go on special. Or be sold as a twofer or something. ‘Cause it's really really revolutionary for gluten-free baking. And since I bake so much bread, I would probably buy one even if I had to pay real coin for it.
Let's take it for a spin.
You start with dough made with only 4 cups all-purpose gluten-free flour. See how wet it is?
Add enough extra flour (about another cup) so that it pulls away from the sides of the bowl. You can do this by hand, if you don't have a stand mixer. It's just a lot more work, and the results tend to be a bit more inconsistent. No biggie.
Then divide the dough (with a bench scraper if you have one – see? so useful) into 12 pieces. With wet hands, roll the dough into balls (or whatever shape you like).
Place them in the proofer (or in your microwave using our low-tech tricks)…
…at about 88 degrees until the dough has risen to about 150% of its original size.
And you'll see how even a rise it is.
How it has no holes in the dough to smooth out. With any other rising method, gluten-free bread has holes that need to be smoothed out with wet hands before baking. But the temp in the proofer is so even, and the environment just humid enough — the rise is perfect.
That, and you don't have to babysit the dough while it's rising. You can even go run an errand. I really like not being tethered to the dough while I'm making bread. And you can also use the proofer to maintain the temperature of tempered chocolate, or make yogurt.
