What’s the point of punching the dough?

Three reasons to punch the dough between the first and second rise

There’s no other part of baking that can relieve some aggression like punching the dough.

If you’re a baker, I’m sure you’re familiar with punching the dough down between the first and second rise. But, as someone who only sporadically bakes, I found this step fun, but rather counterintuitive.

I mean during the first rise you give the yeast enough time to start producing carbon dioxide bubbles to expand the dough to twice its size only to punch it back down?! Then, you wait during the second rise for those carbon dioxide bubbles to form again!! This seems like madness.

Of course I needed to dig deeper and was astonished to learn how critical this silly seeming punch was to attaining both the correct texture and taste of the final loaf.

After much research, I discovered three main ways that punching the dough will improve your next batch of baked goods.

1. Feed the yeast