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Wednesday, September 8, 2010

The case of the collapsing bread loaf...

Kevin is on a health kick lately and bought a fifty pound bag of wheat, and a manual grinder. He has been trying to make some bread but every loaf is coming out all sunken in the middle...any ideas what might be causing this? We just bought a brand new jar of yeast that doesn't expire until April 2011. He's even tried mixing in regular store-bought flour and those all collapse too. He has been following the recipes to the letter (he's tried 3 now) and still no luck.

Any ideas?

5 comments:

  1. My recommendation would be to try a loaf with your yeast and just the store bought flour. I have a feeling it's the wheat, not the yeast. that is causing the dough to be too heavy. I used to bake my own bread years ago, but didn't grind wheat. So I'm only partially qualified to answer your question......

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  2. I agree with Mitzi -- I think it's the wheat. It's possible that it's been ground too fine. I remember my grandmother (an OUTSTANDING baker) having the same trouble with cakes collapsing in the middle. She finally figured out that my mother had switched and bought pre-sifted flour and then my grandmother was sifting it again, as was her habit. The flour was too fine. Once she stopped re-sifting the pre-sifted flour, the cakes came out great.

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  3. He's going to try a loaf with store bought flour and see if it is the wheat. I don't think it is too fine, it looks really "chunky" to me-like maybe it should be ground again! :)

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  4. i was just reading some of your older posts and saw this -- we used to use a bread machine for our bread, and sometimes i had this problem if i used the full length cycle. does your machine have a "quick" cycle? if so, have you tried it? sometimes if the yeast rises too much before the bread bakes the loaf will collapse. that being said, heavier flours can be tricky to work with.

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  5. Hi Cindy Lou!
    Thanks for stopping by!! I'll have to check to see if it has a "quick" cycle! What great advice!! We were stumped as to what was causing it to sink.

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