Freezing Bread Dough (was Re: SC - Bread Soup Bowls)

[Joyce A. Baldwin]

Oh, this is very similar to a question I was just about to post!

>I need 100+ individual bread bowls. To save money for our Barony, I'll be
>making them from scratch. I plan to raise the dough and then freeze them.
What's the best way to do this?
<snip>
>Anyone who's done this successfully and would care to share your secrets,
I'm  very eager to learn! <grin>

Does anyone on the list have tips for freezing bread dough in general, not
just for trenchers?  Decent tasting commercially baked bread blows  my
budget out of the water. I have used less expensive supermarket "French"
bread but I find it to be quite unsatisfactory.   It has, IMO, been the
weakest point of every feast I've cooked and I'd like to change this.

Bread from scratch is _much_ cheaper and usually tastier.  However trying
to produce enough for a feast on that day without tying up the kitchen or
exhausting the cooks  (I am NOT a morning person) has just not seemed
feasible. (This time I'm delegating bread to a moring person.)  I know
bread dough will freeze, but how much has to be done to it afterwards?

Does anyone have recipes that are better suited to such freezing and will
give reliable results?

What about bread made, baked, frozen, and reheated?   What little
experience I have of this hasn't been too happy.  But my roommate owns a
bread machine....

I'm not a bread baker;  my results when working with yeast-risen dough have
been, well, erratic.  Not enough practice yet to predict results. I'm
usually not in one place long enough to do all the fiddling with it over
time that it seems to require!   And I am certainly not going to plan on
serving from a recipes of  whose results I cannot be reasonably certain.  I
can't even get consistant results from the bread machine unless I use a
mix. That's too expensive for a feast, and anyway while they're predictable
and easy, the loaves have a rather boring taste & texture.

The regular ovens at the site  where I'll be doing a feast in Feb. ( I
think -- the autocrat hasn't officially confirmed bid acceptance) don't
work but they have two commercial convection ovens. (Finally - a site with
any kind of working oven besides one tiny residential style stove!)   What
effect might this have on baking the bread? 

Also,  I know there is a temperature adjustment that has to be made for
using convection ovens but I haven't yet found out what it is.  Does anyone
have experience with this?

Thank in advance for the advice,

Jocetta
who is feeling quite parenthetical today





Joyce A. Baldwin
Diva Extraordinaire

In the Society for Creative Anachronism:
Lady Jocetta Thrushleigh of Rowansgarth
Exchequer, Canton of Buckston on Eno
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