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Making bread

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Julian:
I've been making home made bread recently, and although it's mainly been successful (apart from the first one which was squidgy inside) I've been getting squat, compact little loaves.  The dough rises exactly like it's meant to, but doesn't seem to get any bigger when it's been baked.  It's good bread, just a bit stodgy. 

The only thing I can think of is that I've been letting it rise in a bowl, then transferring it to a tin for baking.  Maybe I should let it rise in the tin so that I don't have to handle it which seems to deflate it a bit before baking.

Any ideas?

disrail:
I know that you have to "knock back" certain types of bread whilst in the bowl, before allowing it to rise again. Knocking back is just squishing it up again, so I don't think this is the cause of the issue.

I've found that with bread recipes, the volume of the loaf (inversly proportional to the density for a given weight of flour) is directly related to the yeast content.

I've had lovely thick bread from book recipes, that fills you up with a couple of slices, and then following the recipes on the yeast packets (which involve twice as much yeast funnily enough) give lovely light loaves, which overflowed all over the oven the first time, as I wasn't expecting that much bread!

Apart from the yeast content make sure you use warm water for making the dough and try keeping it in an airing cupboard whilst rising. The yeast also requires some sugar aswell to do it's thing and fart those lovely pockets of air into the bread.

iakobski:
Yes, it should prove twice, with a "knock back" in between. It will only rise in the oven if it has already risen and has all the little bubbles ready to expand.

Julian:
I did the knock back thing with the last loaf, which is slightly bigger than the previous ones but not much.  I think I needed to let it rise a bit more after the second kneading.

I want fluffy bread!  Maybe I'll try doubling the yeast and seeing if that improves it.  Been using warm water and a bit of sugar, so that's not the issue.  

andygates:
Let it rise in the tin, as bread's not like cakes - cooking doesn't make it rise lots more. 

Home-made bread is often under-salted too, and salt makes stretchy gluten makes light bread.

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