Sweet yeast day-before dough
This sweet overnight proofed go-to dough (a dough-to!) can get
you to multiple yeasty goals. It’s the gorgeously soft and flufy
dough I want for Pear claws with salted milk glaze (page 239)
and Dough-bombes with sour cherry jam and quark custard
(page 241) AND the dough with enough fortitude for Pistachio
and lemon iced buns (page 213). If you don’t have a mixer
or yours can’t effectively knead this small dough batch, then
supplement the dough development with a few extra post-
mixing folds.

Weigh the water into the bowl of an electric stand mixer and stir in the
yeast until dissolved. Add the egg, egg yolk, butter and vanilla, then
weigh the flours, sugar, milk powder and salt on top. Add the vodka
last. Knead for 10 minutes on speed 4 (below medium), stopping to
scrape the dough a few times. At times, force the butter into the dough
with your spatula to encourage it to cohere. It will be a sticky, slumpy
mass (not a ball). Look for an elastic response (it should bounce back
when poked) and a fibrous appearance when you scrape the dough
during the kneading. The dough will start to rise up the dough hook
at the end of the kneading.

Let go of the clichéd goal of a tight ball of dough. This dough will firm up
during the long, cold proof into a structurally sound dough.

Scrape the dough into a plastic tub sprayed with cooking oil. Spray the
top of the dough and pop the lid on. Leave to proof for 30 minutes at
room temperature (less time if your kitchen is warm). The dough will
have spread a little and feel faintly puffed.

Do your first folds. Dampen your hands with water, reach into the tub
and pick the dough up at one end. Raise it around 20 cm (8 in), give
it a hearty shake, then lower the dough back down, folding it on itself
as you go. Spin the dough 90 degrees so the open end faces you,
then repeat this fold three or four times until the dough feels smooth
and springy.

Keeps The dough will keep for up to

2 days in the chilled ferment phase.

It will lose puff after that. Eat soon
after frying and filling.

Makes Approximately

600 g (1 lb 5 oz)/6 Pear
claws/7 Doughnut bombes.

Takes Two hours to mix, rest and

proof the dough at room temperature.

Chill overnight.

130 g/ml (4½ oz) tepid water
20 g (½ oz) fresh yeast or
7 g (¼ oz) dried yeast
50 g (1¾ oz) egg (approx. 1 egg)
20 g (¾ oz) egg yolk (from
approx. 1 egg)
50 g (1¾ oz) unsalted butter,
cool and pliable, diced
5 g (⅛ oz/½ teaspoon) vanilla
paste
280 g (10 oz) bakers’ (strong/
bread) flour
30 g (1 oz) wholemeal
(whole-wheat) plain
(all-purpose) flour
30 g (1 oz) light brown sugar
20 g (¾ oz) dried milk powder*
5 g (⅛ oz/heaped ½ teaspoon)
fine sea salt
10 g/ml (¼ oz) vodka
cooking oil spray
* If you’d prefer not to use milk
powder, briefly boil 140 g/ml
(5 oz) full-cream (whole) milk,
cool and weigh 130 g (4½ oz)
into your dough. The milk
powder doesn’t need to be
subbed for extra dry ingredients.

Boiled and cooled milk makes
a fluffier dough.