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If you have ever worked in a commercial kitchen, you may have had experience with a proofing oven. It’s simply a big metal cabinet with racks for trays of dough (rolls, doughnuts, loaves of bread).
It maintains a warm, moist environment for the yeast to prosper and create perfectly-risen baked goods. Few of us are going to have one of those in our kitchens, but we improvise. I have a sister-in-law in whose rear car window can regularly be seen a bowl of pizza dough. Sunny windows, heating vents, & radiators are often made to do double-duty in this way.
I use my oven. This is for ovens with no pilot light–I have heard those make the ovens too hot.
How-to:
1. Set up your oven racks. You need a rack for the pan of dough in the upper portion of your oven. Be sure to allow enough space above the pan for the dough to rise. You need a rack below the pan of dough for a medium-sized pan of boiling water. Alternately you may be able to set the pan on the bottom floor of the oven provided the heating element is not in the way.
2. Place the dough on its appointed rack in a cold oven. Boil a pan of water and place on the rack below it. Close the door of the oven and turn on the heat to 400 degrees F. for exactly one minute. Time this exactly! Don’t forget and go off to do something else! Turn off the heat and don’t open the door. Leave your dough for the amount of time recommended in your recipe.
You will not need or want to cover your dough under these conditions. It will be sufficiently humid inside the oven from the boiled water to obviate the need for a cover. (And of course plastic wrap would melt when you turned the heat on. A towel might scorch.) Just don’t cover it.
No special equipment required. And you’ll never forget and drive around town with a pan of Parkerhouse rolls sliding around in the backseat.
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Thank you so much for this! I grew up in a house with a very large natural gas stove. It had a cast iron griddle in the middle between the burners, which itself had a pilot light underneath. My mother used to put her rising bread on top of that and it was just right. I later got to work with a commercial proof box in my jobs, but of course those are so spendy!
I guess many people don’t cook anymore and aren’t familiar with rising bread. (I am shocked at the number of people excited when they find out I can COOK! Whoopee! I had thought everyone could cook. Silly me.
Thank you so very much for the proofing in the electric home oven. I have been looking and looking some more for these instructions and knew this should be a possibility. My husband & I are retired and to be able to make my own bread in the winter in the Pacific NW is going to help out a lot. Will be trying this out in the AM. Wow, am so happy I found this. Thanks.
I have a gas oven with electric igniter, do I leave the oven on for one minute from the time the oven lights or one minute from the time it reaches 400 degrees? Please clerify? Thanks for the tip.
Harry–One minute from the time it lights. We just want it to be warm, not hot hot.
If you use your oven as a proofing oven, do I still cover the dough? Usually when I make bread, after I’ve kneaded the dough, I place the dough in a bowl and cover the dough with plastic wrap. If I don’t put the plastic wrap the dough develops a crust on the top. If I put the dough in a lightly heated oven with a pan of boiling water tongive off extra moisture moisture, will that impede the development of the crust while the dough is rising. Thanks in advance for the answer.
Daniel–I find that the humidity in the oven keeps the bread surface from drying out and forming a crust. I leave it uncovered. Plastic wrap would get melty and cling to the dough.
How about putting the boiling water on the top rack with the dough below? I tried proofing croissants with the boiling water underneath and the butter melted out.
Phil–Yes, anything to keep things below butter melting point. I wouldn’t even turn on the oven either. Just the moist heat from the water at the most.
Sorry to ask a silly question but if I’m using an electric oven then turning it on to 400F for one minute won’t even begin to heat it up at all, any ideas what the internal temperature should reach before you cut it out and put the pan and the dough in at?
Adam–Not a silly question. I have an electric oven, too. The whole oven doesn’t heat up (thankfully), it just takes the chill off, maybe gives it a little warmth, and the hot water you put in there will do the rest. I don’t have an oven thermometer so I can’t say, but again, it isn’t supposed to reach 400 degrees, not by a long shot. Just slightly warm.
On my oven I have to do the whole pre-heating thing to turn the oven on. Should I put the dough and boiling water in after I start the pre-heat and then turn the pre-heating off after one minute? I’m not sure if I’ll be using an electric or gas oven, dose it matter either way? I’m trying to make yeast donuts and I haven’t been able to figure out a good way too proof the dough yet.
Melissa–Since I’m not really sure of your set-up, I’ll explain what the ultimate goal is–to take the chill off the oven and make the atmosphere in there just slightly warm and nice and humid. Test out what happens when you try it both ways and see which method gets it to warm but not hot and humid but not clammy and drippy. Save me a donut.
Daisy- Alright I’ll try it out and see what happens. Hopefully I will be able to figure this out
I’ll try to save you a donut but I make no promises. Hehe
I make bread quite often and what has been helpful for me is to turn my oven on to 200 (I have a electric stove) then turn it after that temp is reached, I then put my pan of boiling water on the bottom rack and put the bowl of dough which I cover with plastic wrap and a damp towel and let it rise . I also will just leave oven door open with oven on at 200 and put bowl of dough on the oven door it has been my way of having a proof box. This is my first time leaving a comment and I do enjoy all the tips that are given here.
I had my gas oven switched to a electric convection oven. I had originally been using the heat from the top vents to proof my dough but the convection oven takes all that heat away with the fan. So needless to say I had been searching for a way to quickly proof my dough again. I had heard about this and tried your technique tonight for French bread. It worked swimmingly! Thank you so much for the helpful tip!
Thank you for the Electric Oven tip! Tried it and even with our inherited old crappy oven, it worked like a charm!
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