I bake WW sandwich bread in loaf pans. For years I've always just baked at 350 for 36 minutes and it's been great. But I've been reading about higher heat and steam and wanted to experiment. I just baked two loaves at about 400F for 15 minutes with oven full of steam, then I vented the steam out and baked at 350F for another 20 minutes.
I haven't cut into the loaf yet, it's still cooling down. The top stayed high and round - it didn't cave in. But both sides (the square/flat sides where it was in the loaf pan) have turned concave and sucked in as though there were a vacuum inside. Has me puzzled. Any ideas why?
I'm afraid that when I cut into it I'm going to learn it isn't done inside (maybe I have to increase the total time when I'm baking with steam the first half?) - but thermometer probe read 210F inside which ought to be done, eh?
My sandwich loaf is fresh ground wheat, potato water and mashed potato, honey, butter, salt and yeast.
next time around. With fully proofed and steam all that action can be too much expansion. It might be the loaf required 5 to 10 more minutes in the oven to finish the inside crumb, naked sitting on the rack is nice. If not, a quick de-panning and good circulation around the cooling loaf helps prevent caving in but a little shrinkage will always be there.
If you have a separate thermometer, you may notice that when adding steam, the temperature drops in the oven and will slowly rise again as the steam is released or leaks out of the oven. My tip is not to turn down the oven too soon letting the temp return to the desired temp before turning it back. Naturally this depends on how fast your oven recoups from the temperature drop during steaming.
The crumb will let you know more... Pay attention to the middle, obviously, and the way the cold bread cuts. While cutting, if you get the impression the crumb prefers to just tear instead of cut, the proof was too long. If the centre is gooey, well... time to pick out the middle and make dumplings boiling them in hot soup to finish setting the dough. (Reminds me of mischievous youngster play while mom wasn't looking.) If done, the bread balls will fall apart in the soup.
If you pick out all the middle and have a hollow log, one idea might be to make a big batch of onion soup, cut the slices wide and toast them in the oven, drop into the bowl of soup and top with cheese to broil back inside the oven to take the chill off a cold windy day. In summer I might stuff it with a meat or egg salad and let it set up in the fridge.