After getting feedback on my question about proofing bread dough at home, I
think I have finally settled in on a good method. After several tries I
got perfect Italian loaves today at our store. I bench proofed normally (1
hour at room temp. with the dough ball covered with plastic film. Then I
punched the dough and made up the loaves on parchment covered sheet pans
sprinkled with corn meal, basted them with olive oil, sprinkled them with
poppy seeds and scored them. I started the oven and ran it until the
internal temp in the oven was 105 degrees (about a minute and a half in our
oven.) I put the sheet pans in the oven, shut the door and forgot about
them for an hour (at the bake shop these loaves would have gotten a 40
minute proof in the commercial proofer.) At the end of that time I removed
them, preheated the oven, rebasted them with olive oil and baked them until
golden at 420 degrees. Texture, flavor, crust color and consistency were
about perfect. For those interested the dough was mixed up from this
formula:

1 lb. 12 oz. high gluten flour
1 lb. water
..75 oz. fresh yeast
..5 oz. salt
..13 oz. malt syrup

While the oven proofing doesn't provide the moist atmosphere of a commercial
proofer, I found that a somewhat longer proofing time was a good equivalent.
Normally, I would mist the dough prior to baking to thin the crust a little.
In this case I basted with olive oil and the crust was just perfect - it was
harder than I anticipated since the oil should shorten it a little and
soften it.

So the standard home kitchen oven can become a perfectly good bread proofer
with a little patience, experimentation and practice. I'll work on some
richer doughs and try to figure that out. My first attempt at a brioche was
underproofed and produced an overly dense product at 2 hours in the warmed
oven so I don't have that down yet. I may have to add a little yeast to the
formula for oven proofing.

I think a relatively lean dough with some shortening and/or egg should proof
fine in the oven like my Italian loaves did today. I'll run some Vienna
bread on Monday. It's slightly richer than the Italian but still a pretty
lean dough. I'm confident it should work out with the same proofing as the
Italian loaves. Good cooking.

Fred
The Good Gourmet
http://www.thegoodgourmet.com