My dough turned into soup after 4 hours, here's what saved it

I was making my usual Saturday white loaf in Austin and walked away to mow the lawn. Came back 4 hours later and the dough had spread flat like pancake batter, way overproofed and sticky as glue. Instead of tossing it, I dumped it on a floured counter, folded it about 8 times like a letter, and shaped it into a tight ball. It barely rose in the oven but the crumb was actually fine, just a bit dense. Has anyone else rescued overproofed dough with extra folds or should I just start setting a timer on my phone?

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kaiharris23d ago

Weirdly enough I just watched this old youtube video from that King Arthur flour guy about overproofed dough and he said the same thing, basically that you can save it with a bunch of folds if you catch it before it totally collapses into a puddle. He also said the gluten structure is still there, it's just the gas that's gone, so your trick makes total sense. I've done the folding rescue myself once with a focaccia that sat too long and it came out okay, not great, but definitely not a waste of flour. The dense crumb thing is real though, I think you just gotta accept it's gonna be a heavier loaf and maybe toast it. Now I just set a timer on my watch every single time, even for a quick 20 minute bench rest, because my brain cannot be trusted with dough.