How to Use Over Proofed Sourdough

Over proofed sourdough happens to even the best sourdough bakers. Here’s our favorite way to use over proofed sourdough! We’ve also included a few ways to possibly rescue your over proofed sourdough for bread and other items.

How Use Over Proofed Sourdough

If you’ve over proofed sourdough before, then you know how frustrating it can be! However, there’s no need to toss it out, as some might suggest.

Find a way to use up that over proofed sourdough and eat a tasty (albeit weird) treat tonight!

More Sourdough Recipes To Try

Grape Recipes: Sourdough Grape Scones

Sourdough Blackberry Cake with Blackberry Whipped Cream

Sourdough Bread Beginner Recipe

What Does it Mean to Proof Sourdough Bread?

All bread dough needs to go through a proofing phase, not just sourdough. Proofing is the stage just after mixing and kneading (or stretching and folding).

During this phase, the ingredients become dough as the yeast or sourdough starter begins to break down the grain of the flour while the flour absorbs the moisture from the recipe (usually water). 

While this is happening, the gluten becomes “activated”, which means that the gluten in the grain continues to form bonds from the kneading or stretching and folding that you did with the dough before setting it to proof.

• With sourdough bread, this is also the time during which the dough is developing its trademark bubbles, signature flavor, and zingy aroma.

All my sourdough recipes are classified as long-ferment, which means that they proof for no less than six hours. This allows the sourdough to consume as much of the starch from the grain as possible, making the bread much easier to digest.

The Sourdough Academy has a great article called 7 Signs Your Sourdough Has Finished Proofing that will help you learn more about identifying when your dough has proofed long enough.

• The only caveat to her advice is that, if you end up with over proofed sourdough, don’t waste it! You may, indeed, need to mix another batch of whatever it was your were originally baking. However, you can use your over proofed sourdough!

What is Over Proofed Sourdough?

So, what is over proofed sourdough? This is dough that has basically lost its spring and sproing!

• As bread proofs, it becomes very elastic and its this elasticity that allow the bread to hold its shape while it bakes.
• It also creates the rise of the bread, so that it doesn’t end up so dense it could double as a doorstop.

Over proofed dough is like a slinky toy or a spring that have been pulled out so far that they can no longer bounce back and hold their shape.

Sourdough can over proof for many reasons, but the most common are:

1. It’s summer and your house is hot! Summer is my downfall with over proofed sourdough. A warm environment will always speed up the proofing (fermentation) process.
2. I left it too long – this is my other nemesis. If I forget to set an alarm or timer, I will just wander off and forget that I have sourdough proofing.
3. Humidity, blast it, can be another issue in the summer, especially. My state is SO hot and humid in the summer and the water in the air can mess with my carefully constructed water to flour ratios. I can have a gorgeous sourdough set to proof, and then come back to find it a wet mess. Sigh.

Another common issue that leads to floppy, over proofed sourdough is that if you haven’t been baking sourdough long, you might forget to adjust the water in your recipe for whole grain flours.

Whole grains will always have a harder time forming gluten bonds (because the bran interferes). On top of that, whole grains tend to ferment faster because there are more enzymes for the sourdough to feast upon.

Over Proofed Sourdough Donuts

This is more a method that a recipe put I’ll toss it into a recipe card just so you can print it, if you’d like to.

Make these super easy, delicious over proofed sourdough donuts anytime you goof and mess up your dough. Over proofed bagel or scone dough works the best for this, but bread dough will work, too. The texture will be slightly different for each dough.

Over Proofed Sourdough Donut Notes

Heat the oil until it’s reached 350F/176C. Try to keep the temperature there as much as you can for even frying. Use a thermometer to be sure.

If you don’t have a thermometer, drop a tiny ball of dough into the oil. It should float and begin to fry right away, but not burn or smoke. The oil should be the right temperature at this point.

• Be sure the donuts are room temperature to avoid reducing the temperature of the oil vat.
  For even frying, turn the donuts at least once, but I prefer twice, while in the vat.

You can use all avocado oil, if you like, or even olive oil (though it has a heavier flavor). Coconut oil has a low smoke point (which is why we combine it with the avocado oil), but it has such a delicious flavor and ability to crisp fried foods that I LOVE it for donuts.

If you prefer, you can bake your donuts in an oven or air fryer. Bake at 350F/176C for around 25 minutes or until golden. You know your oven and air fryer, so watch the donuts and adjust the bake time accordingly.

The Glaze

If you want something a little fancier than cinnamon sugar, make this delicious maple flavored glaze.

The glaze is a very forgiving sort of concoction. You can serve it warm and dripping or allow it to set up and spread it on the donuts.

Coconut sugar has a very maple-like flavor but you can replace the vanilla in this recipe with maple syrup if you want more maple flavor.

• You can also finish these donuts with coconut flakes, sprinkles, or any other donut topping your prefer.

Over Proofed Sourdough Donuts – Kid Recipe?

This is a particularly good recipe to get your homestead kids started with sourdough because:

1. It lets them know right away that it’s ok to make mistakes with sourdough baking.
2. They also see that sourdough is a collection of living organisms and needs to be tended – kind of like a pet!
3. Kids also realize that when we do make mistakes with sourdough, we can turn them into something delicious. Nothing is wasted!
4. Because it’s already “messed up”, there’s no pressure in working with over proofed sourdough recipes, so kids can learn slowly.
5. Obviously, donuts are delicious, so this is a compelling reason for kids to want to hop into the kitchen and help you make them!

Avoid Over Proofed Sourdough

Here are some other ideas to help you avoid or rescue over proofed sourdough. I’m such an airhead sometimes that I have over proofed sourdough more often than I’d care to admit.

First of all, if you think you might forget about your sourdough, put it in the refrigerator to proof which will significantly slow down the process. You can take the dough back out of the fridge when you know you’ll have time to shape and bake it.

I’ve made up several bread dough recipes, tossed them in the fridge to proof, and then pulled them out one day at a time to shape, rise, and bake. Sourdough bread doesn’t need to be “babied” like commercial yeast bread – it’s really very adaptable.

• Crave the Good can help you learn more about Proofing Sourdough in the Fridge.

Rescue Over Proofed Sourdough

Here are a few other ideas for saving that over proofed sourdough:

1. Bake the bread anyway! If it’s holding together at all and still smells palatable, go ahead and shape it, bake it, and eat it up. The resulting loaf will most likely be flat and dense but it will be usable for toast or strata (like this Sourdough Breakfast Strata from Fork in the Road – yum!!).
2. Bake sourdough focaccia instead. Reform your over proofed sourdough into a ball, roll it out in a rectangle, and press your fingers all over into the surface to form dimples. Line a jelly roll pan with parchment paper, place the dough into it, spritz with olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt, and bake at 425F/218C for about 25 minutes or until golden on top. Delicious!
3. Make frybread using this basic technique but instead of forming donut shapes, just form flat pancake-type shapes. Top with cheese and chives instead of sugar. You can even stuff the cheese and chives inside, if you’re prefer!
4. If it’s really gone beyond (18-24 hours at warm room temperature), over proofed sourdough can still be given to livestock for a probiotic boost.

Did I miss something? What’s your favorite way to rescue over proofed sourdough?

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