Punch down

When dough rises to double its original size, it needs to be deflated to enable the yeast to continue having contact with the starches and sugars. If the dough is left to rise for too long, a yeasty, alcoholic smell and flavor develop. The deflating, called punching down the dough, squeezes out the carbon dioxide and ethanol and gives the dough another opportunity to grow and develop flavor. The dough is literally punched until it is deflated and then it is squeezed and re-formed into a ball. This step can be omitted after the final bowl rise when making bread to be baked in pans because the action of shaping the loaf squeezes out trapped air. The loaf then has one final rise in the pan.