Gummy loaves (2024)

FAQs

Gummy loaves? ›

Too much water can also produce a damp loaf. Try less water with your flour. Uneven heat in your oven can be the culprit – if you loaf is nicely golden on the outside but gummy or moist in the inside, it's baking too quickly on the outside. Trying reducing the temperature you're baking at and bake for a bit longer.

While a nice hot oven can produce a beautiful loaf with a crisp, golden crust, too hot of an oven will cause the crust to finish cooking long before the center of the bread. This will result in undercooked dough with a sticky, chewy texture rather than a fully risen crumb.

The crumb structure of an under proofed loaf will be tight and gummy. Because it was not given enough time to develop and trap CO2 gasses, the crumb structure will be very dense, with uneven air bubbles.

It's not until you slice the sourdough and see the crumb structure that you realise it's under fermented. The great thing is that generally, unless it's completely raw inside, you can still eat an under fermented sourdough bread.

If your dough is too sticky and it's impossible to work with you can add some extra flour, just a little at a time. Make sure you weigh the extra flour you add and then you'll be able to adjust the recipe correctly the next time you bake.

Under baking can produce a gummy interior. Try baking for longer. Is your pan big enough for your loaf? If the pan is too small and your loaf doesn't have the space it needs to grow as it bakes it will hinder the bake and prevent it from being fully baked inside.

Air circulating around the loaf allows the steam built up inside the bread to evaporate. If the bread is kept in its baking pan, it will become soggy and look and taste doughy. If the bread has not finished baking by the maximum time indicated in the recipe, the oven thermostat may be off.

The flour you used may have contained too much protein. Protein is one of the ingredients that help yeast bread brown. Use bread flour that is purchased at a grocery store or a national brand of all-purpose flour. You may have overdone it on the protein.

underproof dough will spring back completely correctly, proof will spring back slowly and only halfway, and overproof dough won't spring back at all. after baking, the underproof dough will be dense and deformed. while the dough that was ready will be fluffy and light. and the overproof dough will be flat and deflated.

If you don't have the time to problem solve, you can always throw it out and start over with a new recipe. Baking it again: Slice the bread into 1 inch pieces. Place on a parchment lined cookie tray and bake again for 150-25 minutes in a 350 degree F oven. The goal is to dry out the bread.

When should you not eat sourdough bread? ›

It's pretty easy to tell when sourdough bread has gone bad because it will be covered in visible signs of mold growth and will feel hard both inside and out.

Your bread is "gummy" because that is the nature of high hydrated bread. If you lower your hydro it will be less gummy. Try going for 60-65% hydro.

When the bulk fermentation goes too long — often when the dough more than doubles or triples in volume — the dough can over ferment. You know the dough has over fermented if, when you turn it out to shape it, it is very slack — if it's like a wet puddle — and very sticky and lacking any strength and elasticity.

Most likely when this happens, it's not you - it's your starter. If your loaf is dense, has uneven holes and a gummy texture, most likely there wasn't enough active wild yeast in your starter to make the bread develop and rise during baking. This can be the case even if your starter seems really happy and bubbly.

Bread contaminated with rope spoilage initially develops an unpleasant fruity odor similar to a strong scent of rotting pineapple or melon in a period of 12–24 hours. As time passes, this is followed by a discolored, sticky or soft bread crumb.

Using too much water relative to the flour. Over fermentation: letting the bulk fermentation (first rise) go too long. Using too much whole wheat flour, rye flour, or freshly milled flour.

Why does my cake have a gummy streak in the center? Developing too much of the flour's gluten can make the cake rise beautifully in the oven, but sink as soon as you pull it out. The sinking part is what makes the dense and gluey streaks. This can be result of over-creaming the eggs, butter and sugar.

The flour you used may have contained too much protein. Protein is one of the ingredients that help yeast bread brown. Use bread flour that is purchased at a grocery store or a national brand of all-purpose flour.

An oven that stays humid too long can give you rubbery bread.