Bread Rising

I've been having trouble with the bread rising slowly in the cold kitchen. We don't have a pilot light in the oven. Usually I let the bread rise on the counter, with a big pan upside-down over it. (I learned that trick from the Frugal Gourmet, and it works great to keep the dough from drying out. It works much better than covering the dough with a cloth.) Today I got out the heating pad, plugged it in, turned it on "low," and set it on top of the metal bowl covering my bread dough. It worked great! That little bit of extra heat seemed to make a world of difference.