How to Tell if your Bread is Baked | Baking Tips (2024)

FAQs

How to Tell if your Bread is Baked | Baking Tips? ›

Inserting a toothpick into the center of a baked good is a tried and true method to test for doneness. If the toothpick comes out clean, your bread is likely fully baked. It needs a bit more time if it comes out wet with dough or crumbs.

Look for edges that are pulling away from the sides of your pan, a golden color, and internal temperature of 190°. A crack running vertically in the middle of the bread is absolutely okay, but be sure it doesn't look too wet or runny inside. Can you save cooking and cleanup time with a new technique?

In most situations, an undercooked loaf of bread can be fixed by returning it to the oven for a few more minutes. This is true for loaves where the outside of your bread may look fully set, but the inside of the bread is still gummy. Place the loaf back in a preheated oven at 350° F for 10-20 minutes.

But when it comes to over proofing, then often the outside will tell a good tale too. As the gluten breaks down the loaf will not be able to keep its shape. It may be flat or if it is proofed and baked in a tin, then the sides of it will start spilling over. It will not rise as it is baking either.

Use your senses: Sound

“For crusty artisan bread, one way to determine doneness is by thumping the bottom of the loaf,” says Barb. “Give it a few quick knocks on the bottom of the loaf with your knuckles; if it sounds hollow, that tells you it's fully baked.”

If you're checking on shaped dough for the second rise/proof, then it should also be about double in size. Feel: Bread dough that has successfully risen/proofed will spring back slowly when poked and leave an indent. If it snaps back too quickly, it needs more time.

Gently press your finger into the dough on the top. If the dough springs back quickly, it's underproofed. If it springs back very slowly, it's properly proofed and ready to bake. Finally, if it never springs back, the dough is overproofed.

A traditional pan bread with low hydration and no pre-ferment, like a classic sandwich loaf, will get really crumbly if you bake it too long.

It's important to allow bread to cool all the way, or until it's just barely warm, to complete the cooking process before cutting. Rolls will take only about 20 minutes to cool. Bread baked in a loaf pan can take as long as 1 hour and a large free-form loaf can take as long as 1 1/2 hours to cool.

TESTING WITH A TOOTHPICK. This is likely a technique you are familiar with if you have enjoyed baking other things like cakes and cupcakes. Inserting a toothpick into the center of a baked good is a tried and true method to test for doneness. If the toothpick comes out clean, your bread is likely fully baked.

Why is my bread still doughy after baking? ›

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.

Rather than do that, I would look to extending fermentation if your dough isn't rising quickly. Or just go ahead and bake your bread. Accept that you did the best you could that day, and try again tomorrow.

Overproofed is when the dough has rested too long and the yeast has continued making carbon dioxide while the strength of the dough (gluten bonds) have begun to wear out. The dough will look very puffy, but when you touch it or move it you may notice it deflate or sag.

Properly proofed dough will be much more consistent in structure, with a soft and fluffy interior, and larger, but more evenly dispersed air bubbles present in the crumb. Over proofed bread is likely to have a very open crumb structure, due to the development of excess CO2 during the proofing stage.

The three primary tests for determining if a cake is done baking are the visual test, the toothpick test, and the spring-back test. One of the simplest and most reliable ways to tell if a cake is done is to insert a toothpick or thin wooden skewer into the center of the cake.

Straight Dough Method. Delayed Salt Method. Sponge and Dough Process (S&D)