Why you should use a shower cap when fermenting bread
I don’t take towels or robes from hotels, but I do make it a point to take all the crappy disposable shower caps. Although they’ll never see the inside of my bathroom, they’ll definitely be used in my kitchen. You see, I use them for Baking bread. The humble plastic shower cap is surprisingly helpful Let the dough rise.
Like so many important life skills, I learned this trick The Great British Bake Off. At a bread baking competition, one of the contestants unwraps a tiny envelope and comments on how they steal shower caps from hotels to make bread rise. They put the plastic lid on the bowl of freshly kneaded dough and moved on.
The Pitfalls of Proofing
After that episode, I was both angry that I hadn’t done this already and excited that I was in for a hotel stay. Even though it’s just a single step in the bread-making process, a strong rise during proofing can make a big difference in your finished bread. It would be huge to streamline this move.
Fermenting involves leaving raw dough in a warm place for an extended period of time, usually a few hours, to allow the yeast to release gases and allow the dough to rise. Typically, bread recipes recommend covering the dough bowl with plastic wrap or a tea towel. For me, these have always been good methods, but there are also pitfalls. Plastic wrap does not adhere particularly well to metal, plastic, or wooden bowls and can slip off the bowl or slide into the bowl. Tea towels are fine, but they are porous and can be drafty. Either way can result in longer wait times or, worse, the formation of a dried out skin on your dough, which can affect the texture and make it difficult to rise.
Hotel shower caps make it easier for dough to rise
The way hotel shower caps are designed to hang from your skull also make them perfect for looping over the edge of bowls. It is essentially a plastic bag with an elastic ring around the opening. The elastic band stretches easily and attaches to bowls 12 inches in diameter or smaller. Once tightened it will not move.
Photo credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
The plastic foam traps heat and creates a little more headroom in case your dough rises surprisingly high. This prevents your dough from sticking to the plastic and keeps your shower cap clean so you can reuse it indefinitely (or until it falls apart).
Photo credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann
If you’re baking once or twice this winter, you might not mind longer cooking times, but if you’re baking breads more often this winter or baking for friends and family, using a shower cap can make cooking a lot less fussy. So next time you stay at a hotel, be sure to check the bathroom for your next kitchen appliance.
