What went wrong with your bread? (2024)

FAQs

What went wrong with your bread? ›

It may indicate the kneading wasn't enough for the gluten to develop properly, or the dough was proved for too short a time or the dough may have been too dry. It is also worth checking the flour you used. Always use strong flour instead of plain and make sure too much salt was not added.

Too much flour and not enough water can cause crumbly bread – people often do this if the dough is too sticky and they add more flour rather than kneading through it. Other culprits can be overproving or not kneading enough – the things you need to do to get a good structure.

Yeast is too hot Yeast may have been dissolved in water that was too hot, or the liquid ingredients in the recipe may be too hot, causing the yeast to die. Yeast needs to be warm - not too hot, not too cold. Yeast is too cold If the other ingredients are too cold, it could cause some of the yeast to die.

One of the most common mistakes is having a dough temperature that's too low for the starter to feed on all the flour in the dough, resulting in a crumb that's dense, with fewer openings. "Starter is happiest and most active at around 75 degrees. If it's a lot colder, the process will be much slower.

The flour could have too low a protein content, there could be too much salt in the bread recipe, you did not knead it or leave it to proof long enough, or you could have killed the yeast by leaving the dough to rise in a place that was too hot.

When is bread not healthful? The highly processed flour and additives in white, packaged bread can make it unhealthful. Consuming too much white bread can contribute to obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. However, buying bread with the word “whole” as the first ingredient still does not guarantee a healthful product.

If the bread has visible mold, it's best not to smell it in case its spores are harmful to inhale. If you don't see mold but notice a strange smell, it's still best to throw out the loaf (7, 8 , 9 ). Strange taste. If the bread doesn't taste right, it's probably safest to throw it away.

But almost as good as a proofing box is taking a Mason jar filled halfway up with water, microwaving it for two minutes, then putting your bowl of dough into the microwave with the jar to rise. The other thing you can do is place your lidded container or bowl of dough into a second, larger bowl of warm water.

“If the dough has risen too long, it's going to feel fragile and might even collapse as you poke it,” says Maggie. If this is the case, there's a chance you can save your dough by giving it a quick re-shape. Learn more about this fix in our blog on saving overproofed dough.

Does Rising Bread Affect Its Texture? For a fluffy bread texture, the key is to let the bread rise long enough.

How can I make my bread fluffier instead of dense? ›

Potato Flakes or Potato Water

Starch helps the dough by trapping the gas from the yeast in the dough and makes the bubbles stronger. This helps the bread to rise and be lighter and fluffier. If you are boiling potatoes, you can use the unsalted water in place of the water in your bread recipe to help out the yeast.

While bread flour is the best option, it can sometimes be used if you don't have bread flour. “Check the protein content,” advises Chef Jürgen, since it can vary from brand to brand, and an all-purpose flour that contains protein on the higher end of the range, 12 to 13 percent, will produce a better outcome.

Too Much Flour

The big lesson here: too much of any ingredient can make your bread not rise—even flour. Too much flour can make your dough stiff and dry. And we all know what happens if there's not enough liquid for the yeast to use: It doesn't work how it should.

The over-kneading dough is a common bread making mistake, which makes gluten too tight for bread to rise, resulting in chewy bread instead of fluffy. Kneading correctly is most important to strengthen the gluten and give your bread a perfect texture.

Too Much Flour

Even if you select the correct flour, if you overdo it your bread will come out heavy and dense.

Common bread faults include poor volume control, poor shape, thick or thin crust, dense or open crumb, and off flavors. The causes of different faults are explained, such as too much or little yeast, salt, liquid, or improper fermentation/baking steps.

Common Yeast and Bread Dough Problems

Many of these common yeast dough problems are usually due to the yeast being dead to begin with, the yeast being killed or impeded somehow during the bread-making process, or being in a non-ideal environment that is too hot or too cold.