Zhima Shaobing

Kneading dough 57 recipes

• The work changed it: what began shaggy and rough is one smooth, cohesive mass, with nothing raggy hanging off it.
• The surface has gone satin and barely tacky, releasing cleanly from hands and board instead of leaving a trail.
• Worked to the point this dough asks for and no further: springy and elastic where structure is wanted, just brought together where tenderness is.
• Torn or cut open, the inside is uniform: no dry streaks, no unmixed pockets, no core of flour that never met the water.
• After its rest it rolls and shapes without snapping back. A dough that fights the pin needed more rest, not more force.

Where it goes wrong Sticking was fought with flour instead of technique or patience, stroke after stroke, until the dough had taken in far more than the formula asked; it turns tight and dry under the hands, and bakes dense however well everything else goes.

Proofing: the rise before the oven 78 recipes

• Judged on volume against the container rather than on the clock: visibly grown, and grown by roughly the amount the recipe describes.
• The poke test agrees: a floured fingertip pressed a centimetre in leaves a dent that springs back slowly and only part of the way. Straight back means it is not ready; no spring at all means it has gone.
• The surface is domed, smooth, and slightly sheened: not cratered, wrinkled, or collapsed, and not skinned over and dry from proofing uncovered.
• Handled, it feels alive and airy: light for its size, with bubbles visible under the skin.
• It springs in the oven: the piece lifts in the first minutes and the scores open. A shape that does not move at all was proofed past its point before it went in.

Where it goes wrong It was proofed to the clock in a kitchen colder or warmer than the recipe assumed: overproofed, it collapses as the blade touches it and bakes flat and dense with a sour edge; underproofed, it tears at the side and bakes tight.