Your dough is alive. Seriously. Yeast cells are breathing, eating, and partying in that dough ball. They love warm spots—around 70°F to 85°F.
Leave dough out at room temp, and those yeast partygoers turn into a wild mob. They eat all the sugar, burp carbon dioxide, and puff your dough up fast.
Too fast, actually. An hour or two? Fine. Overnight? Disaster. You’ll make a sour, flat disc that resembles a hockey puck.
