Proofing: the rise before the oven

How to tell it is going right

• 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.