Can dough mixture be refrigerated?

Question

I was trying to make cinnamon rolls but noticed that I’m missing two cups of flour and it’s too late in the night for me to get more. I’ve already made the mix (yeast, milk, and sugar) and added two cups of flour (I need 4 cups for the recipe).

Is it okay for me to refrigerate the mixture and just continue my buns after tomorrow when I get more flour? They have not been through their first rise yet since it’s not full dough yet, just a lumpy mixture. I’m hoping the fridge won’t kill the yeast.

Answer 1

The refrigerator won’t kill your yeast, but it will also merely slow down, not stop its activity.

Yeast is most active (multiplying and producing CO2) at temperatures around 30°C - that’s why most recipes suggest letting your dough rise in a warm place. However, the tolerance range is way wider and yeast will still be slightly active at refrigeration temperatures (but perhaps not in the extra cold zones). Bakers use this effect for specific preparations where they rest their dough for sometimes days (no-knead bread is a prime example) or convenience (preparing buns in the afternoon or evening and baking them in the morning).

For your case, simply make sure that the dough mix doesn’t have dry lumps, but a shaggy dough is fine - I would even recommend you don’t fully knead the dough. Then place it in an airtight container with enough headspace or cover it well to prevent drying out and leave it in the refrigerator. A few hours won’t matter and if you leave it longer, you should see activity in the dough.

Proceed with your rolls when you have time, but I would recommend you use visual and haptic clues (e.g. increase in volume and the way the dough feels and springs back) over resting times in a recipe. You may also need not the full amount of flour if your dough had this initial phase in the refrigerator, so add the new flour slowly.

Answer 2

You have functionally made a biga!

You'll end up with a kind of sloppy dough mess, that'll look deeply unpromising. This is fine. See biga in Wikipedia.

It's fine to refrigerate, with some caveats - mixing this up and letting it sit in the fridge is a fairly common technique. The fridge will slow but not stop fermentation, so you'll have all of the changes associated with a long ferment - more acidic dough, more developed flavour, a little sourdoughy. This can still work super well.

Caveats:

1. Yeast eats sugar. You may need to add a bit more
2. This will be foamy, but doesn't count as a first rise - the proper gluten structure won't form until the rest of the flour is mixed in
3. your dough will be a little sharper, but the extra flour should help
4. Once everything comes up to room temperature, the first rise is likely to be fast - so, taking it straight from the fridge, it'll do nothing for a while, then expand like crazy.
5. If you've not added eggs or butter yet, add them once you've mixed in the extra flour.

Once it's done the first rise, treat it as normal.