Why is my bread always crumbly at the top?!
Why is my bread always crumbly at the top?
i use a bread machine, and follow the instructions, but my loaves always seem to have a loose, crumbly top that breaks up when i slice it - why? not enough oil? too much water?
Additional Details4 weeks ago
my recipe is 375ml liquid, (i use a mix of water and milk), 600g flour, i use a mix of strong white and seeded, a tsp dried yeast, a tbsp sugar and a tbsp oil. i usually add nuts and seeds as well.
Answers:
4 weeks ago
my recipe is 375ml liquid, (i use a mix of water and milk), 600g flour, i use a mix of strong white and seeded, a tsp dried yeast, a tbsp sugar and a tbsp oil. i usually add nuts and seeds as well.
Give me your recipe. I used to bake bread for a living, but need to see your ingredients to determine the exact problem.
Additional: This is what you should be doing:
Add the dried yeast to the liquids, making certain no more than 150ml of them is milk. Leave for a few minutes, then add sugar, oil and flour (together but in that order). The flour should be at least 50% of the white. I'm not certain what you mean by seeded flour. I'm assuming that you mean it is a whole grain variety, as I am assuming you mean the white flour is a high gluten variety. Depending on what type of "seeded" flour you are using, then you may need to make your white flour 70% of your total flour.
Mix the dough until the gluten has nearly formed completely if you are going to add nuts and seeds, then add them and finishes mixing, or completely if not. The gluten has formed completely when you can take a little piece of the dough and gently pull it to paper thin consistency without it falling apart.
Personally, I'm thinking that you aren't using enough gluten in your recipe, which is needed to hold your bread together. When you add non-gluten flour or whole grain wheat flour and/or add non- flour ingredients, then you risk keeping your bread from binding together as much as it would do otherwise. The top of your bread will have more of the moisture removed from it than any other part of your bread, so if it isn't binding there sufficiently then it will start to break apart and crumble after baking and upon slicing.
You might also be allowing your dough to rise a little more than it should before baking it, which can cause the same thing to happen.
Additional2: If you were over mixing your dough, then the entire bread would break apart upon slicing and you wouldn't be getting it to rise much at all, which doesn't sound like the problem. You have a sufficient amount of yeast and food for the yeast to grow in the form of sugar and lactose in the milk.
not enough oil to allow it to rise
there may not be enough yeast. Also don't mix the dough to much or you will make the gluton unactive which makes the dough rise and firm.