Okay, here’s my experience with freezing sweet bread dough:
So, I’ve been messing around with making bread lately, and sweet bread is my absolute favorite. But sometimes, I get a little carried away and make way too much dough. I mean, who can resist a fresh, warm loaf of sweet bread, right? Anyway, I started wondering if I could just freeze the extra dough and bake it later. I did some digging online, and it turns out you totally can!
I found out that there are different kinds of frozen bread dough you can buy, but I wanted to freeze the dough I made from scratch. The simplest method I found was to just leave the wrapped dough on the counter for 2-4 hours until it’s soft. I thought, “Easy enough!” But then I read that this might not be the best way, especially for my precious sweet bread dough.
The best way, according to the internet, is to move the dough from the freezer to the fridge and let it chill overnight. I was like, “Okay, that makes sense.” You gotta let it defrost slowly, you know? So, here’s what I did:
- First, I shaped my sweet bread dough into loaves, just like I normally would.
- Then, I wrapped each loaf tightly in plastic wrap. Like, really tight. Gotta keep that air out!
- After that, I put the wrapped loaves in a big freezer bag. I squeezed out as much air as possible before sealing it.
- Into the freezer they went! I made sure to label the bag with the date so I wouldn’t forget about them.
A few days later, I got a craving for sweet bread. Time for the test! I took one of the frozen loaves out of the freezer and placed it in a greased bowl. Then I put the bowl in the fridge overnight. The next morning, the dough was still pretty cold but definitely thawed. I took it out of the fridge and let it sit on the counter for about an hour to finish rising and get to room temperature. I preheated the oven, popped the loaf in, and baked it as usual.
And guess what? It worked! The bread came out just as fluffy and delicious as if I’d baked it fresh. I was so stoked! Now I can make a big batch of sweet bread dough, freeze it, and have fresh bread whenever I want. It’s a total game-changer, seriously.
