The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Loaf shrinkage

Pegk's picture
Pegk

Loaf shrinkage

Hi all, 

I’m new to The Fresh Loaf, and would appreciate some help and advice.  

I have been trying out a new bread recipe with honey as the sweetener rather than sugar.  Everything is fine, the loaf turns out nice and tall but the middle is shrunken and collapsed in.  I’ve tried this recipe three times now and have adjusted the baking time (longer each time), but it is still collapsed.  Other than that the bread is light and fluffy and soft.  

Can anyone please advise what went wrong? Or how I can avoid it? 

Thanks,

Peggy 

clazar123's picture
clazar123

I don't think the honey is the culprit. That is a lovely, feathery looking crumb but it looks like the crumb has trouble supporting itself. Kind of like when an angel cake is removed from the pan too quickly and just deflates. It looks like it has to be supported until it cools. A recipe, including the type and brand of flour used, would be most helpful. Are you using an all purpose flour?  Low protein flour? long fermentation? Lots of sugar?

Interesting loaf.

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

How long is the loaf left in the pan before the dough hits the cooling rack?  Try depanning immediately.

What temp is the bake?  You tried baking longer, did you try lowering the temp?  On another post, Doc Dough suggested,"...reduce the oven temperature after 5 min to 350-375 and bake until the crumb temp reaches 200F."

Pegk's picture
Pegk

Thank you both! Here is the recipe: (Note: the original recipe makes two loaves so here is my recipe that’s halved as I only made one) 

Starter:

175g bread flour 

105g water 

1g yeast

10g honey

Bread dough:

75g bread flour

4g salt

7.5g dry milk powder 

35g honey

1.5g yeast

25g egg

26g water 

25g softened butter 

(Three-stage proofing, starter proof —> knock down and mix with dough —> 2nd proof —> knock down, shape and put in pan for final proof)

Bake at 400F for ~35 mins 

I usually remove it from the pan right away to the cooling rack

_________________________________________________

After reading some more and the said post by Doc Dough, I suspect that 1) I may have over-proofed in the final stage (almost fill the pan before going into oven, hence structure becoming weak); 2) I put foil after about 10 mins to avoid over browning.  This dough browns fairly quickly. 

I am going to try to reduce final proofing time, and reduce temp to 350-375F and bake a little longer, and get rid of the foil. 

Any other suggestions / corrections? Thanks!