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Too large loaves?

bbriscoe@infolink.morris.mn.us (Bonnie Briscoe)
Sun, 1 Jun 1997 16:59:30 +0100
v097.n039.5
On May 20 you wrote:
>This may sound really dumb but my problem is that my loaves are too
>high.
> I don't bake my bread in the Zoji. I do the dough only cycle as I like
>shaping it myself.  I use most of my bread in school lunches and the
>size of loaf out of the Zoji just doesn't work with our sandwich bags.
>So, I take the bread out after the dough cycle.  I place it in a greased
>glass loaf pan and allow it to rise.  I had a height that I thought was
>perfect.  Great shape, great height everything great!
>   Then I placed my "perfect" loaf in a 400~ oven and bam! it rose
>instantly to heights I didn't want or need.  How do I keep this from
>happening? I suddenly had a very very large oversized loaf.

Karen,
I think you experienced the phenomenon of "oven spring," which occurs when
you place a risen loaf of bread into a hot oven.  I don't know all the
chemistry involved, but I've seen the same thing happen in my Zoji at the
start of the baking cycle -- you can actually stand there and watch the
loaf "grow" as the gas bubbles formed by the yeast expand rapidly in the
heat. When I bake bread in the regular oven, this is what I always hope
for, because it means I didn't let the loaf rise too much before baking.

To get the size loaf you want for sandwiches, maybe you could try dividing
the dough between two smaller loaf pans, or perhaps place 2/3 of it in the
same pan you used and shape the remaining dough into rolls or buns.  But it
sounds to me as if your recipe is working the way it should.

Bonnie

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Bonnie Goodwill Briscoe             e-mail:bbriscoe@infolink.morris.mn.us
Morris, Minnesota, USA
        Language is all that separates us from the lower animals--
                        and from the bureaucrats.
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