I have had the same breadmaker for 5 years.  It was my mom's before that so I don't know how old it is.  I discovered that if I go against the advice of the breadmaker handbook (add ingredients in order suggested which is wet, then dry, then form a well and put yeast in it) Instead I add warm fluid, yeast, sugar and wait 10 min then add the ingredients on top of that, I get a much lighter loaf.

That aside, I use my breadmaker ALL the time.  I make breads but my main use of it is as a dough mixer, since it is a handy place for rising the dough.  I make rolls, pepperoni rolls, cinammon rolls, pizza dough etc.

The last time I used it and it was functioning properly was Christmas.

This past weekend I made my pepperoni rolls.  I always use the same brand of yeast, which is labeled that it can be used in bread makers.  I noticed when I took the dough out of the breadmaker It didn't seem as fluffy as it should.  I thought maybe I messed it up by using bread flour instead of all purpose which is what the recipe called for.  So I set the dough aside and started again.  This time I used all purpose flour but only 2/3 since I ran out, the final 1/3 was bread flour.  Again it came out heavy and not as fluffy as normal.  At this point I took the first batch and tested a few balls in the oven to see if it would come out ok.  It seemed to bake alright, a bit heavy but it tasted all right.  So I made the pepperoni rolls despite the dough not being right.  The dough was not stretchy like normal, it was almost like sugar cookie dough but I could manipulate it anough to form a roll so I baked them.  Everyone raved about them but my husband and I knew they were off. 

So tonight I made a recipe for a loaf bread and it turned out very heavy.  It was a disappointment as well.  The top was sagging instead of being puffy like a normal loaf.

Two things were amiss that I can think of, when I looked in at the water years mixture before adding the flour I noticed that although the yeast was puffy looking I could still see the separate little pieces of yeast floating on top of the water.  The other thing to note was after the timer went off, I removed the loaf pan.  We ate dinner and when we were cleaning my husband noticed the machine was still hot.  He said the coil was red, when I looked it was a little red and black but still felt warm.  I unplugged it.  I have never looked before to know if this is normal or not. 

The yeast that I use is redstar active dry yeast.  The rolls were made from two different 3 packs.  Both labeled with a Sept 2013 expiration date.

The flour I use is always on the fresh side since I go through it quickly.

Any thoughts????????

I can see that sourdough requires a certain amount of chemistry, which may be why I'm not doing well at it (I've never studied chemistry).

I made another attempt at it. My starter is doing quite well. It's USING the starter that's a problem. I used someone's basic dough recipe off this site and let it rise overnight. When it had risen, it was almost liquid, so I added more flour to it and kneaded it vigorously. It turned into a pretty fair-looking round, which I then left to rise again.

It rose again. It wasn't liquid, but it was far too sticky, or so it seemed. It wasn't a round of dough anymore, but a bowl of rising substance. I added more flour, made a loaf, and baked it.

It barely rose at all. It seems to be done, as far as I can tell, but it's a real disappointment. Is there an idiot-proof recipe out there? I should add that I'm using ONLY wheat flour. I refuse to use rye; I hate the stuff, and I stay as far away from it as I can.

Need help in solving this problem. My rolls are braking on the sides and on top. Please help!

I am an ambitous amateur bread baker, particularly intereted in sourdoughs. I've been baking seriously for about a year and a half and I've improved a lot in that time. I can now promise to bring artisan hearth breads to gatherings and feel confident that the loaves will turn out to be both delicious and presentable.

However, I still struggle with what should be very simple loaves. Baguettes are beyond me. They fuse to the parchment paper couche and become hopelessly stuck. Or deflate when I pry them loose. Or if, in desperation, I bake them IN the couche, they sort of steam on the sides and get a flabby crust. I've tried oiling the parchment paper, but that, again, yields a flabby texture to what should be a crisp crust.

Also, I live in a semi-arid climate and the dough dries out very quickly. With a lower-moisure dough, it works very well to spray the loaf lightly with oil and cover with plastic wrap while it proofs. The dough stays moist, but non-sticky enough to allow for clean scoring. But with a high-moisure dough like baguette dough, the surface seems to get too sticky to allow the blade to score cleanly and I get ragged edges and pull the soft dough out of shape.

How do I get the dough to stay vertical, be moist but not sticky, and crisp up the crust?

I'm getting a bit tired of eating flat, dense baguettes that resemble scimitar blades in shape and dimension.

I was making a chocolate bread today. After putting all ingredients I kneaded the dough well, it felt a little harder than usual, I decided to add a liitle water and finally it came together. I put it aside to proof. Then It suddenly dawned on me that I didn't add in sugar. Instead of throwing itbout or leaving it as is ( it'll be alittle bitter because of the cocoa), I decided to take the risk and add in the sugar and knead some more. Adding the sugar in the middle of the dough a little at a time, I managed to incorporate the sugar in. Initially the dough was turning sticky, I persevered, it finally came together, with all the sugar melted into the dough. This texture felt right this time with the sugar. I didn't realize how important sugar is to the texture of the dough till today!

Learning from this is, remember to place all ingredients in front of you, and there's always a way to solve a dough problem!

My chocolate bread turns out as require.

So I decided (with help from people here) that my starter was ready to bake with (link to that discussion: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/16928/my-starter-ready-baking). And I decided to try Peter Reinhart's 'basic sourdough' in BBA. I think the starter itself was fine, but for one reason or another (or more than one reason) I got so so results. The bread was tasty and not a complete disaster, but the crumb was definitely denser than I think it should be and the loaves were a little flat. The crust was very nice and crispy though. For a first attempt I think this is pretty good but something definitely needs to improve and I was wondering if anyone could give me any suggestions.

Here are the loaves I produced:

And here is a crumb shot. As I said it's not a disaster, but how do I get those nice big holes? If anything the dough was wetter than the recipe called for. I thought wetter dough made for bigger holes? Do you think I didnt ferment the shaped dough long enough? Too long?

And here's one other problem I had. I used this thingy pictured below. I dont know the real name for it but I used it to ferment the shaped dough and then put this whole thing with the dough on it into the oven right onto the baking stone. I use this because when I try to imagine myself sliding those very messy wet loaves into the oven and onto the baking stone I just can't convince myself that they'll slide nicely off of the sheet pan and onto the stone without sticking or getting misshapen, or falling off the stone onto the oven floor, or any number of other possibilities, no matter how much cornmeal I lubricate it with. The problem I have though is that although the loaves I made were not very big, as they fermented, the side of each loaf started spilling over the side of the pan, and the problem became much worse after they were put into the oven. I managed to tuck the side of each back up into the pan, but I cant imagine that that helped the bread rise properly in the oven. Am I missing something here that I need to know about these things in order to prevent this from happening, or is the only solution to make smaller loaves? I'd be willing to try to learn how to put the loaves directly onto the baking stone if anyone has any good advice on how to do that without a tragedy occurring. Anyone?

It is so frustrating to spend more than a whole day of preparation to bake and then turning out something mediocre. 

Hello im a new user just started making bread. Im a student and as part of our project we have been asked by a company called kenwood to improve and re-design a bread machine i was wondering if anyone had ever had any problems with a bread machine or has any tips or anything to do with them tbh would help. Any problems you could share would be a huge help thank you.

Hey to everybody, anybody -

This isn't a bread concern, but just personal, and something that sort of irritated me - on my TFL profile, I'd posted a link to my own external blog, but checking up on my account discovered that somehow a website with which I'm not at all associated - a bible sales corporation - had somehow pirated the link. No idea how - has this happened to anybody else here?

I think I've corrected the problem, but if anybody's interested, my real blog is

 http://erzsebetgilbert.blogspot.com/

where I don't sell things - I just put up my own short stories, travelogues, diaries, and photographs.  Apologies, thanks, and greetings to all - 

Erzsebet

HI, I just received a Zojirushi Breadmaker as a gift and I've baked 6 loaves so far. 

Loaf #2 was excellent and the best bread! Since then, I've haven't been doing anything different that I can tell, but the following 4 loaves have been a disaster. They rise, but then fall and sink down in the middle. The dough almost tastes uncooked. What am I doing wrong??? help!

I'm using very precise measuring and all my ingredients are fresh as I just bought them in the store this last week. Could it be bad yeast?? Please help!