AboutElyse Grau Expertise I can answer any questions about baking. The only thing I'm not too good at is baking pies, nor do I know much about high altitude baking.
Experience I have been baking for over 30 years. One of my hobbies is creating recipes, most of those for baked goods. I made my own wedding cake. Currently I prefer to bake healthier things. I use a lot of whole wheat and other whole grain flours, and prefer to use less sugar or sugar substitutes in my baking. I do a lot with fruit.
Whenever I bake bread the domed top collapses. What could be the problem?
Thank you, Mark
ANSWER: Mark:
I assume you are talking yeast bread and not quick bread (baking powder). Either you are over-kneading the dough (this is especially easy to do with whole wheat flour)a or letting it rise in the pan too long. Either will weaken the gluten strands. The bread rises beautifully but the structure is too weak, and as the steam escapes during cooling the bread collapses.
Elyse
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QUESTION: Elyse, thank you for responding. Now we're talking bread. What I'm going for is a long loaf with a lot of holes. I knead minimally and don't punch it down to keep the bubbles. I let it rise in the loaf pan as I would a conventional loaf. How can I have the holes without too weak a structure?
Thanks again, Mark
Answer OK, I think I know what you mean. First, you might actually not be kneading enough - I'm not sure what you mean by "minimally". If you don't knead it enough you won't form the gluten strands to begin with.
If you don't think that is the problem, you could try a couple of things. One is to stretch the dough as you knead it. I do this when making Ciabatta bread - is that the kind of texture you're talking about?
The other thing is to use a wetter dough. Also true of the ciabatta loaf. You mention you are looking for a "long" loaf - like a baguette? Are you using a baguette pan? Unless you are trying to make a sandwich bread of uniform size and shape, you could bake your bread on a cookie sheet or baking stone. Not that this would be the cause of the sunken top, unless there is too much dough for the pan perhaps, but you might get the shape you are looking for.
In the end, if you are trying to duplicate you buy in a bakery, you may be disappointed. Commercial bakers use some ingredients and methods that cannot fully be duplicated by the home baker and home oven. But you should be able to come close, and I'm guessing that even the breads with the collapsed tops taste great!
