Hi, Beth. We're wondering about how stiff your dough is. Usually slow-moving yeast doughs such as you describe don't have enough water in them (or, same thing, have too much flour) for the yeast to grow at a reasonable rate. Are your loaves very fine-grained? Is the dough very bouncy instead of smooth and elastic? If you're not sprinkling flour into your measuring cup to put some air in it before sweeping the excess off the top, you could be inadvertently adding 20% too much flour. Susan

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