When the crumb comes out dense

A dense crumb is the complaint that brings most new bakers back to their notes. The loaf looks handsome enough from the outside, or it doesn’t, and the slice is tight, grey at the centre, or frankly gummy. Three causes cover almost every one I have baked.

The first is time. Dough that has not fermented enough has not made the gas, or the gluten, to hold an open crumb. It feels heavy when you turn it out, it tears instead of jiggling, and the score barely opens. Next time, give the bulk another half hour and judge it by the dough: a rise of about half, bubbles at the edge, a dome that quivers. The clock in the boule recipe is a starting guess for a kitchen near 24 °C. A cooler room needs longer. A warmer one needs less.

The second is strength. A very wet dough with no folds, or a dough cut with too much bench flour worked into it, can ferment and still bake up tight. Folds are not decoration. Four sets, half an hour apart, line the gluten up so the gas has walls. If the dough was glue, look at hydration before you add more flour to the next mix.

The third is the knife. Bread continues to set as it cools. Cut a loaf after twenty minutes and the middle smears, which looks like a bad ferment even when the ferment was fine. An hour on a rack is the minimum. The heel can wait.

A flat loaf that spread into a pancake is a cousin, not a twin: usually the bulk went too far, or the shape was loose. A pale loaf is an oven problem. Bake it darker than you think is polite. Colour is flavour, and a pale crust often hides a crumb that never quite dried. Write one sentence about what the dough felt like. That sentence is worth more than another new recipe.