Bread Baking Babes make a splash; Floating Dough

This month we wrapped our dough in a teatowel, tied a pretty twine around it and called it a day!
please join us as a Bread Baking Buddy! Let Elle  know how you wrapped your dough by the end of this month....

Hehe, we did a little bit more than that but you guessed that already. Elle over at  Feeding My Enthusiasms        was our host this month and we gathered around her kitchen table while she spun us a story about how to wrap your dough and sink it off in a bucket of water....

The dough was a very rich dough, quite the amount of butter, sugar and eggs added to get a brioche like dough. Don't let it scare you, the dough was amazingly well-behaved, easy to handle and tame!
So far so good, nothing new there. But here we go.... now  we were supposed to wrap the dough in a floured tea towel, tie it up en sink it in a large bowl filled with warm water! Yes. Immerse a package of dough in hot water.

And then? Well, it sinks to the bottom.

Then within 30-45 minutes it rises back to the surface (any submarine songs?)
The packet bobs right up and floats on the water... so funny! It's all bulky and feels airy.
Suspense.....

Because it's still wrapped in that teatowel! Granted, I floured it heavily but then again, the whole thing is soaking wet so what the dough looks like? I was really wondering if I could get it out more or less in one piece.

Turns out I need not worry. The dense layer of flour kept the dough ball intact and protected from the water and with the help of my dough scraper I could get the dough out pretty easily.

Again on the work surface and pushed back, balled up and put to rise in a loaf pan. I didn't make two separate loaves but instead chose a bigger loaf pan and put two balls of dough next to each other to rise.
And then made dinner, all of us around the table (doesn't happen very often these days), enjoyed after dinner coffee..... forgot ALL about that dough rising@

Unfortunately -in this case :-() it rose pretty quickly although I used only 1.1/4 tsp of yeast. Over rise! So so very unnecessary. I baked it and we had it the next mroning for breakfast. A real brioche like dough, dries out quite fast but overall very very nice loaf of bread!

Thanks Pat for this step out of our comfortzone again in a direction I never imagined!

It was fun and I was almost sorry the boys have grown so much because this must be so great to do with children around! Sinking and rising dough packages! Can it get any better? And see -> no ruined tea towel!
But now, can someone please tell me WHY we do this?
I mean, does it help the dough in any way? Make it softer? Or quicker? More controlled rise?
Anyone?

This is what Elle discovered:
The theory is that the dough, being delicate, will benefit from rising in water where the water barrier will keep the yeast produced gases inside the dough, for a better first rise. Having it wrapped in a tea towel is probably necessary since Beard says this is a sticky dough, even when the first kneading is done.

Also please let Elle know you baked along with us: YOU are invited to play along, get watery, and become a Bread Baking Babe Buddy. Just bake the bread (recipe below), take a photo, send her an e-mail (to elle dot lachman at gmail dot com) with the photo and a link to your post, plus a few words on your experience baking this bread. Variations are encouraged, but do try the water proofing, OK? By the way, this makes excellent French Toast

!