Letting the dough rest for a longer time also aids in fermentation, which ultimately gives the bread a better taste. Resting your dough allows the yeast to break down the sugars present in the dough more efficiently. This helps to achieve better fermentation. Better fermentation leads to a better-tasting bread. If the resting time is reduced, the yeast does not get enough time to break down the sugars in the dough properly. This affects the fermentation process and results in a poorly tasting bread.
The resting of dough is perhaps the most passive stage of the process, but it’s also when the greatest alchemy occurs. Once the ingredients have been mixed and the dough has been kneaded, it’s allowed to sit for anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes to several hours or overnight. As it rests, the gluten calms down, flavors begin to meld together, and fermentation starts to activate. A lumpy, misshapen mass of dough is transformed, without our intervention, into something more rounded, more supple, more pliable. This waiting isn’t a waste of time; it’s just giving the ingredients the chance to settle into themselves, for the starches to absorb liquid and proteins to bond in a way that wouldn’t happen if we were impatient.
One of the most powerful tools at your disposal is also the easiest: autolyse, which is a resting period before the addition of any salt or fat. Mixing flour and water together and allowing them to rest for 20 minutes to an hour lets the flour absorb the water more uniformly, while also starting the process of gluten development on its own. The result is dough that will be easier to knead, which will take less work to develop the same amount of strength, and which will sometimes produce a more open crumb. You may also observe that dough allowed to rest in this way tastes more developed, as the enzymes are allowed more time to convert starches into the simple sugars that provide flavor and browning.
Extended resting times, including refrigeration, exploit the same idea. Yeast fermentation is quite slow at night or over a few days, so lactic acid fermentation can impart deeper flavors. Consider the subtle bite of a good baguette or the depth of flavor in traditional sourdough. The refrigeration also makes the dough stronger and easier to handle, which means it can be shaped without removing most of the air. It also makes the timing of the dough more flexible, because you can refrigerate it until you have time to continue working with it. That makes the process a lot easier to manage.
Resting is forgiving. An overworked dough, a dough that wasn’t kneaded quite enough, seems to find its redemption with a rest. Cracks in the dough relax and disappear, the tension in the dough relaxes and the dough becomes more manageable. The resting helps the baker understand that timing isn’t everything, and you don’t need to watch the clock every second. Most bakers find they need to time the dough less and less and begin to judge its readiness by its feel: the dough is ready when it feels energetic, relaxed and slightly tacky (instead of sticky). The transition from rules to intuitiveness is a major learning milestone.
Ultimately, dough resting teaches us that sometimes the best thing we can do is nothing. The dough almost always comes back to our hands better than it went into the rest — softer, tastier, more willing to be transformed into something fantastic. That ability to let things rest is a superpower in its own right.