I’m so frustrated. The last 3 batches of bread I’ve baked have stuck so badly in the pans that when I finally get the loaf out of the pan, the whole bottom crust is stuck to the bottom of the pan.
I’m using the usual recipe, same pans, same oil for greasing the pans. I’ve been making this recipe for 6 mos, using these pans for 4. I cannot think of a single thing I’m doing differently. I used to be able to just tip the pans over and the bread would fall out.
Now it’s much running around the edge of the pan with a knife, digging around the edges and shaking the pans to get the loaves out.
Can you send me the recipe? And the types of pans, I mean, what are they made of?
I am a baker by profession, but to do some troubleshooting it helps to know some things.
Have you changed brands with any of your ingredients? Even when it’s the same types of ingredients, different brands of flour or oil especially can effect the bread. How do you oil or grease the pans, by spray, oil, fat rubbed on? Are you sure the thermostat on your oven hasn’t changed? Maybe there’s a temperature difference that is changing how the recipe bakes up.
Baker! so nice to see someone who lives up to their user name.
I’m thinking maybe temperature. Not the oven, but the world. And the pan, and the dough, when you first put it in. One variable factor. Anything can spook good bread, bread is the diva of the cooking world.
Here is the recipie I’ve been using for about 6 mos:
½ cup plus 1 tbsp brown sugar
2 cups warm water (105 - 115 F, I check with thermometer)
1 Tbsp active dry yeast (I use Fleishmans from a jar kept in the fridge)
5-6 cups whole wheat flour (I have used the following off and on: Whole Foods brand, King Arthur and fresh ground when I can get it from a friend with a grinder)
3/4 cup powdered milk
2 tsp salt
1/3 cup vegetable oil
Sometimes I add various seeds, sometimes I switch the brown sugar for honey and add walnuts. I have made both types sucessfully until about 3 weeks ago. Then 2 batches of honey walnut wheat and one batch of 3 seed have stuck terribly.
My pans are heavy duty, Chicago Metallic bread pans with folded corners. I oil them with vegetable oil by pouring some in the pan and rubbing it around with my fingers.
I raise the bread in the oven. First I set the temp to 150, then turn it off and raise the bread. I raise 2x in the bowl, then in the pans. Then bake at 400 for 15 min, then 350 for 30. My house is drafty and we keep it on the cool side, so counter top rising doesn’t work.
Yes, brands of ingredients have changed (oil, flour, sugar) but that has been going on the whole time. The bread tastes great and has a wonderful texture, even crumb, etc. It’s just started sticking.
Any thoughts? I’d love any tips or hints you could give me. I love baking and baking bread is really a pleasure for me.
Hmmm, if you have changed brands and ingredients from time to time, without difficulties, my first thought would be to check your oven temperature. Get a good quality oven thermometer and compare it to what your dial says. It may be that without your realizing it, the oven is baking at a higher temperature. Do you have a gas or electric oven?
Was it especially humid this past summer, in Sacramento? Is it drier now? You mentioned a drafty house and cooler temperatures as well.
Instead of warming the oven at low, then turning it off to let the bread rise, maybe try what I do at home. Place the dough to rise in a cool oven, not pre-heated at all. On a lower rack, or beside the bowl if you have only one rack. place a pot of hot water, uncovered, that you’ve just taken off the boil on top of the stove. Close the oven door. This confines the warmth of the water, and the steam keeps the rising dough from drying out. Depending on low long you want a dough to rise, you may have to take the pan of water out and reheat it once or twice.
Keep us posted, I want to hear how this turns out. If suggestions so far from us don’t work out, I’ll look for something else in my books. Or I could try contacting the school I went to, the American Institute of Baking. They have a fine library and instructors that would be far better at troubleshooting than I would be.
Although I can’t help with the troubleshooting, I can tell you that in the meantime, you can eliminate sticking by lining the bottom and sides of your pan with parchment.
Ok, I’m going out to buy an oven thermometer today or tomorrow. I have an electric oven and I’ve never really checked the temerature to see if it’s accurate.
I will try the raising method you mentioned, Baker, this weekend when I bake again. Also, do you have any thoughts on whether solid fats like butter would be better than vegetable or olive oil at greasing the pans? Thanks so much for all your help so far.
At home I use Crisco or lightly rubbed vegetable oil, at work I use spray on oil, so far there doesn’t seem to be much of a difference. I don’t generally use butter, it has a lower tolerance for high temperatures, and burns more easily.
I wish I could get, for home use, the same shortening I use at work. It comes in big fifty pound blocks though. I’ve considered asking my boss if I could buy a chunk for home. “Baker’s Shortening”, from whatever supplier, is firmer than Crisco. And while neither one has a taste as such, I prefer the taste of frostings made with the stuff from work. (I use a blend of unsalted butter and shortening for decorating icing.) I just don’t use pre-made frostings, the preservatives make them taste, well, preserved. But I don’t disdain cake mixes. A good, name brand cake mix will give a product that’s better, and more consistent in quality, than most people can manage.
I’ll look forward to hearing about the results of your temperature testing. It was the first thing I could think of, when you said that changing other ingredients had not, in the past, made a difference in the sticking.
Hope you don’t mind a hijack with my own bread baking question…
Whenever I bake bread, it ends up very tasty and lovely but dense as a lead brick. This is the type of bread you can feel sitting in your gut for hours afterward. I hand bake as I don’t have a breadmaker, and I use commercial bread mixes where you just add the water and yeast, nothing else. I couldn’t tell you what my proportions are, because it’s been ages since I last baked anything because of this very reason, but I have some new bread mixes I’d like to try and before I ruin them I’d like a bit of a hint as to how I can make my bread as light as possible…
Hijack away! I’m happy to share my thread with another bread person.
I was able to lighten my bread as well as improve the texture by raising it twice in the bowl and then lastly in the pans. My recipe only calls for one bowl raising and then to the pans. My mom mentioned she used to raise the bread twice in the bowl and so I started doing it.
The freshest ingredients you can get are also very important. When I have fresh ground wheat and a brand new jar of yeast, my bread is at it’s best.
I’m beginning to wonder if stickiness could have anything to do with old yeast. The last 3 batches stuck and those were the last three portions of yeast left in the jar. Anyone know?
Thanks Rhiannon. I tend to do one bowl rise and one pan rise, because that’s the way the box says to do it, but this time I’ll give it a go with two bowl rises.
Oh, if you really love bread you must try making it from scratch!
I can’t recommend highly enough the late James Beard’s book Beard on Bread. It’s absolutely my favorite bread book. In addition to recipes he has much information on ingredients and all the whys of bread baking. Why warm water, why this flour or that, and so on. He also had a good section on troubleshooting, how to diagnose problems with your bread. I think it’s still in print, it’s a classic, but if you can’t find one new there will be plenty at used book sites.
Rhiannon, I had the same thing happen the first time I put my pans in the dishwasher instead of handwashing; the detergent etched them. Have you changed your method of washing?
Damn, I didn’t think of that one, but it could be a factor! I’m glad lissener remembered it. The finish on pans can make a difference in how stuff bakes, glass, ceramic, metals, and so on.
I once saw a National Geographic documentary on gold. It was mentioned that pure gold would make excellent cookware, as in frying pans, because of it’s heat conducting properties. So to demonstrate they made a frying pan that was like 20 karat gold( the alloy was needed because gold is soft). Julia Childs made some kind of chicken dish in the pan. It was also mentioned that while filming the cooking portion, a guy from the company that provided the gold was on set at all times. His job was to keep and eye on that pan! It was, of course, melted back down after filming.
Well, until they started sticking, I just ran them under hot water and wiped them with a clean dishtowel. After that, I let them soak a bit in hot water to loosen the stuck on bits and then used a cotton kitchen cloth to get the bits off. Then dry with dishtowel. I don’t use soap on them at all. Maybe I should? I’m really, really careful with all my pots and pans. I was really trying to do everything right because they were really nice pans.
I’d try butter or Crisco to grease the pans rather than oil. I think regular cooking oil does not do as good a job. As for why it is sticking now and not before, it may be the oil you are using has changed to eliminate trans-fats.
Ok, I got an oven thermometer. I set it up and then turned the oven to 400º. When the oven chimed to indicate it was at 400º, the thermometer read 250º. After 10 minutes it read 400º, then after 30 mins it read 410º. I turned it down to 350º and checked it after 15 mins and it read 350º.
Of course I don’t know if my oven temps have changed because I didn’t take readings beforehand.
I’ll go to the market tomorrow and get yeast and then bake bread tomorrow afternoon. I’m planning to use butter to grease the pans and line one pan with parchment (bottom only so it doesn’t interfere with rising) and see if there’s a difference.