Even if you have followed a bread-baking recipe to the letter, sometimes the results are not all they should be. Many people want to know how to bake bread with great results every time but the learning; process is usually through trial and error. Experimentation and practice are usually all you need to bake successful bread recipes but here are a few bread baking troubleshooting tips in case you are encountering problems!

How Long Does Dough Take to Rise?

A lot of new bread bakers might find their bread goes crumbly or only stays fresh for a day or so. The usual reason behind this is that the bread has been left to rise for too long. You might think leaving it for as long as possible to become enormous will result in a bigger, better loaf, but this is not the case. Letting the dough rise for too long does not result in lighter bread. The dough becomes over-stretched and falls to pieces. A good guideline to follow is that when the dough has more or less doubled in size, it is ready for baking. Another cause behind crumbly or stale bread is adding too much yeast or allowing the dough to rise somewhere too hot.

Why is My Bread Cracked?

When your dough is rising, you need to cover it with oiled polythene or a tea towel. Your bread will probably crack if you allow it to become dry when it is rising. A tea towel is less messy than oiled polythene but remember to wash it afterwards.

Uneven Bread or Bread with Holes

This problem can be the result of leaving the dough uncovered when it is rising. Another reason behind holey bread or uneven bread is that the dough was not sufficiently kneaded. A minimum of 10 minutes of kneading is required to make sure all your bread ingredients are well combined.

Doughy or Heavy Bread

Bread should be light and springy in texture. If it comes out heavy, there are a few possible causes for this. When making bread, you always need to use bread flour. Bread flour is also labeled "strong" or "extra strong" flour. Normal flour lacks the necessary amount of gluten to make bread and is best for making cookies or cakes. Another possible cause of doughy bread is that the rising temperature was too high and killed the yeast, or perhaps the dough was not left to rise for long enough. Heavy bread might just be undercooked. If that is the reason, you can pop it back in the oven for some more baking. When the bread feels firm rather than spongy, it is done.

Heavy Whole meal Bread

This is usually caused by not using enough water in the dough mixture. Whole grains need extra water to become soft. If you do not use enough water, this will draw from the dough, making the finished bread heavy. You can use half whole meal flour and half white flour for a lighter loaf.

If you follow the above bread baking tips and guidelines as well as the recipe you are using, there is no reason why your bread should not come out delicious every time!

There are two possible reasons for these problems. One is that the oven was not hot enough. A lot of ovens barely reach the high temperature needed to bake bread and need to be turned up full before the cooking begins. The other reason is that the dough was allowed to rise for too long. If it more than doubled in size, it was left for too long.