Why does bread fall

But remember, if the dough has doubled in size before these times it is ready to use. Baking temperature All ovens have their own foibles, and you need to get to know yours. Some ovens run hotter than its settings, some cooler. If the oven is too hot the loaf will be brown and crispy on the outside but doughy in the middle and may collapse as it cools.

When bread is baked at too low a temperature it will not rise enough in the oven resulting in a dense and sunken loaf. If you suspect your oven is not baking at the right temperature a little experimentation is required. The easiest way is to use an oven thermometer to work out the accuracy of your thermostat or through trial and error by setting the knob a few degrees higher or lower for your loaf and checking the results.

Any master baker will tell you that you can have the best equipment and perfect technique but if the quality of your ingredients is substandard your loaf will be of poor quality. Previous post Next post. Leave a comment Name. If you are making a whole wheat bread you will notice that it has about the same protein content as regular bread flour. The fact that whole wheat bread has the added bran and fibers to it will require higher hydration thus lowering the amount of gluten in the final product as well.

If using whole wheat or rye flours or any other flours that have a lower protein content in them, try to blend the flours with a strong flour.

This will help to balance out the protein content and will help with the development of a good strong gluten mesh. If you want a higher whole wheat flour content then replace the percentage of the white flour with Strong flour.

You might notice that the collapse happens during the slashing stage or when transferring the dough from your proofing basket onto your peel or dutch oven. This is quite common for doughs that are over-proofed.

The proof or proof of your dought is the final stage before baking. This is when your dough is most susceptible to flatting.

Overproofing your dough will result in a flatting or collapsing of the dough. The reason for this is that the yeast in your bread has exhausted itself and does not have any more energy after you put it in the oven. Also, your bread dough has expanded too much and when you put it in the oven your dough cannot rise anymore because the yeast cannot produce any more gasses and it then collapses.

Because the process is long and most sourdough bread recipes call to proof your bread in the fridge overnight it usually leads to over proving. Your fridge temperature might be different as well and your flour composition will vary. Luckily there is a very simple test you can use to see if your dough is ready for baking or not.

Make sure to test out your dough throughout the proving stage. There is a simple poke test that can be done. Gently poke your dough with your finger.

Just a slight poke not too deep. If the indentation slowly comes back up your bread is just right. If the indentation you make pops right back up, your bread is not proofed enough. Many times you will notice that your bread dough will flatten when you transfer it from one place to another.

This is especially true with high hydration doughs like focaccia or ciabatta doughs. This dough has a very high hydration content and their gluten mesh is very fragile. If you are too rough with this dough or bang it on a counter it will lose all the gasses trapped inside and will result in a collapse.

If you are lifting these doughs from their proofing stage and into your peel or pan you must do so very carefully. Instead of lifting try to get a wide scraper underneath them. If you are proofing these on a cloth gently lift the cloth up from it side turning the dough onto a wide scraper or a piece of cardboard with some cloth on it as well.

Do not attempt to pick up these doughs with your hands as you will not be able to support the full size of the loaf. While this is not common in bread but mostly in cakes, there are some occasions where this can happen. Yeast Type or Condition — The yeast might have been old or might have been the wrong type for the setting.

Click through to read about what happened to me. Maybe you accidentally measured something wrong or forgot an ingredient. If you made the recipe correctly, the next step is to try it again, making just one or two changes. Also, make notes about the changes. How did you vary the recipe? What was the result? Use your revised recipe as the new baseline. Look at the result, look at the variables and try again if needed. No problem. On the next loaf make you can try an additional change to the yeast or maybe a change to the salt.