Bread - Problems and Solutions

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When baking bread recipes, problems can occur. I have listed the most common ones with solutions for GENERAL BREAD BAKING, BREAD MACHINES and for PRE-FERMENTS AND SOURDOUGH STARTER BREADS.

If you have additional questions, please post them in our CraftyBaking.com Forum, and we will be happy to answer them.

SARAH SAYS: Always use recipes from reliable sources, such as ours. We create and test our own foolproof step-by-step how to bread recipes; some are over 10 years old, and have been baked successfully by our members all over the world.

An incorrect recipe is a common cause of baking failures and is not discussed often enough as a potential problem -- if a recipe is off balance with its ratio of dry and wet ingredients, has something left out , has an incorrect oven temperature, etc. it simply won't work. (Recipes are not required to be tested before publishing). The only way to find out is by trial and error; you've baked something several times and it doesn't turn out right. Well, I always suggest trying a new one before you get too frustrated, feel like a failure and hate baking.