#overproofed

BaHahahahaha

My marble rolls baked up into boobies.

  2.5 hours later:

The time it takes to rise depends on many things including: the temperature of the room, the temperature of the dough, the vitality of the yeast and the amount and kinds of sugars in the dough.  I use a slow-fermentation method, so my bread takes a long time to rise -- usually.  Sometimes it surprises me and jumps out of the bowl when I'm not looking.

You will know that the dough is ready when it has doubled in volume and it doesn't spring back if you decide to poke it.  Don't allow your dough to over-rise (or "proof" in baking terms) as it will compromise the structure of the bread and exhaust your yeast.  A tired yeast is a sad little fungi... don't do it.

When it is ready, dump out your dough, and start dividing it into loaves.  You can eyeball it, but this will not be very precise since the dough will not uniformly "de-gas" when you dump it out.  I use a scale.  Generally speaking, loaves will need to weigh between 1.5 and 2 pounds, depending on the type of loaves (or size of your pans, if you are using them).  Since I was not using pans, the weight was not critical; however, I did want them to be roughly the same size.  As it happens, there was enough dough for three 1.75 pound loaves.

Once the dough is divided, form it into rounds, cover with some plastic, and let it "relax" for about a half-hour.  This period serves as a "second-rise", but it is mostly an opportunity for the dough to recover from the rough-handling during the scaling and shaping.  It's called "relaxing" because the dough will rise slightly and be much easier to form into whatever shape you are aiming for (in my case, "torpedoes").

Once the loaves are formed, cover them so they don't dry out (plastic bags work great).  Technically, the loaves are ready when they have doubled.  Unfortunately, it can be tricky to tell what "doubled" is supposed to look like, and if the yeast is sullen, it can take quite a while.  Just make sure not to over-proof.  If you do, you'll end up with small, pale, tough, alcohol-flavored loaves (yum!).

Today, however, I was in luck... it only took another 2.5 hours.