Make Ahead Monday-Bread Dough to freeze

For an updated post with recipe go here

By request of my college friend Laralee I am posting about making and freezing bread dough today.  Sometimes it would be nice to have a fresh loaf of bread without having to go through the whole bread dough making process.  That is where freezing bread dough comes in handy.  Next time you make bread you could double your batch or take part of your single batch and form it into loaves and freeze it to use at a later date.  I looked in my Red Star Yeast Cookbook all about breads and it said the best time to freeze dough is after kneading, before the first rising.  There are two methods you could use: #1. Is to freeze the dough in a disc shape on a cookie sheet for one hour.  After it has hardened, wrap in plastic wrap and put in a ziplock bag.  It can be in the freezer for up to 4 weeks.  #2. Is to form the dough into the desired shape (like in a loaf pan or buns).  Freeze for 1 hour until hard, then cover with plastic wrap and put in a ziplock.  It can also store for 4 weeks. At this point the book says to thaw your dough in the refrigerator overnight.  I did that with mine and when I woke up in the morning I took it out to bring it to room temperature but it never rose.  I think I had it sitting out for 6 hours and there was no change.  I baked it to see what would happen and I ended up with two hard mounds of dough.  So the second time I tried this I took the dough out of the freezer the night before and set it out on the counter overnight.  We have a wood burning stove in our kitchen area so it was warm and when I woke up in the morning the dough was perfect-in fact it had risen a bit more than I liked so I punched it down, reshaped it and let it rise a second time.  Then I baked it as I normally do for my recipe and it was DELICIOUS.  It was actually the fluffiest bread I have made yet.  This is revolutionary for me.  Who doesn't love the smell/taste of fresh warm bread.  Normally I bake bread on Tuesdays and make about 4 loaves and freeze them (already baked).  They are fine that way-but what a treat it was to have fresh warm bread for breakfast.  This got me thinking, instead of prebaking my loaves I am now going to freeze part of the dough before I bake it giving me the option of fresh hot bread whenever I need.  You could totally have fresh bread for the evening too-just take the dough out in the morning and leave it during the day.  You need to make sure the room is warm or it won't work.  Here are some pictures:


Dough after shaping and before freezing.

Dough after freezing.

Failed first attempt with dough thawed in refrigerator.

Dough thawed and rising on counter overnight

SUCCESS!!!!