To fix dough that didn't rise, first create a warm, moist proofing environment (like an oven with hot water) to encourage yeast activity; if it's still sluggish, knead in fresh, activated yeast with a little sugar and flour, ensuring it's well mixed, or if all else fails, repurpose the dense dough into flatbreads, tortillas, or fried dough. The most common causes are dead yeast (too hot/old liquid), cold temperatures, or not enough time, so warm it up and give it more patience.
Cubed reject breads are good for a LOT! You can make croutons, bread pudding (perhaps with a bourbon sauce?), bread and butter pudding, even plum pudding! I recommend exploring plum pudding if you've made enough bread that you might be willing to age a pud for a year!
Baking ingredients were too cold. Flour and other ingredients should be brought to room temperature before use. Bread was set to rise in an area that is too hot or cool. Yeast doughs generally rise best in a draft-free place at temperatures between 80° and 95° F.
If your mixture does not rise much or stays at the same volume, then your yeast is no longer active. You'll have to throw it out, and get yourself a new batch.
Use a heating pad that is set on low and cover it with a towel. This will provide a warm surface. Fill your sink with warm water and place the bowl of dough on a rack or an upside-down plate above the water. The warm water will bring humidity and a gentle heat, which helps the dough rise quickly.
The optimum rising temperature for most doughs is around 22 °C to 25 °C or 72 °F to 77 °F. At this temperature, the yeast or sourdough starter is sufficiently active to raise bread, pizza or bun dough. At higher temperatures, the raising agent is too active and the dough does not have enough time to develop.
The same slurry can be incorporated even after the dough is at the rising stage (or the not-rising stage). You'll have to do some extra kneading to make sure it's mixed in, though, and that potentially leads to a complication.
Kneading dough creates gluten, which you need to trap the gas that your yeast makes and raise your bread. However, after a certain point, the yeast that creates the gas to raise your dough degrades the gluten enough so that it is no longer strong enough to trap the gas, so it all just escapes and the bread never rises.
Add more yeast, blend in the starter, or knead in more flour to help initiate rising. Dough that has expired yeast, too much salt, all-purpose or cake flour, or antifungal spices like cinnamon might have trouble rising.
Yes, you can knead it in and it will still work. I've forgotten yeast when making bread and added it in at the end, it still rose and I got a good result. How you do it depends on the type of yeast.
After awhile, if stored improperly, yeast cells will die. And if you use dead (or dying) yeast in your bread, it won't rise.
Temperature Guidelines
A universal temperature that works well for a wide variety of breads is 81°F (27°C). If you love simplicity, just set the Proofer to 81°F and know that it will work well for most breads. Sourdough works in a range of 70-85°F (21-30°C).
If you need to speed up your dough's final rise and don't have a proofing box, try proofing your dough in the oven. Place the covered bowl of dough in the oven and turn on the light to create a warm, cozy environment. Set a pan of hot water on the lower rack, and the warm steam will help the yeast work more quickly.
Yes, I recommend covering your dough when proofing in a home oven.
Covering your dough correctly is a crucial step here. For best results, we want a non-porous, tight-fitting cover that will keep the dough from becoming too cool or developing a skin. And a towel doesn't cut it: The porous material allows heat to escape, causing the dough to lose temperature.
Yeast is too hot Yeast may have been dissolved in water that was too hot, or the liquid ingredients in the recipe may be too hot, causing the yeast to die. Yeast needs to be warm - not too hot, not too cold. Yeast is too cold If the other ingredients are too cold, it could cause some of the yeast to die.
Toss it. For future reference, you can store yeast in a sealed jar in the freezer for a nearly indefinite lifespan.