I’ve been posting a lot about baking recently and I think it would be easy to assume that I’m a baking professional who never makes mistakes and always have perfect results. For example, in this post, I only used the pictures of my beautiful loaves, because, well, it’s not as fun to show off the not-so beautiful ones!  However, I know I’m not a perfect baker so I figured it was time that I proved to you all I’m not.

Exhibit A:  WAY TOO MANY HOLES!

Last week, I forgot about my bread and it rose probably 1-2 hours longer than it should have. They didn’t fall entirely when I put them in the oven (a small miracle) but when the they came out of the oven , I could tell that they had some giant bubbles on top (and were over-baked as well to seal the disaster).

with just one bubble popped

Then I obsessively started pulling off the deficient crust and in the end, had this to show for my day’s efforts.

so frustrating!! (But of course, we’re still eating it because I’m not going to waste all that work just because it has a few ugly holes!)

Later, after it had cooled completely, I sliced it and discovered that there was a big hole inside one of the loaves as well (desirable in rolls but not sandwich bread).

The next morning, when I sliced my sourdough bread, baked the night before, I found holes in that one as well.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had this problem.  Here are two crazy loaves  from April 2013.

I’m really not sure what’s going on with my bread these days.  I had a good run of several months with no issues so maybe I became complacent? I’ve had to use store-bought whole wheat flour for about the last month or so.  That’s made me realize how spoiled I am by our locally-ground flour. Also, I think I’ve just continued to bake the way I normally do and haven’t made allowances for the different way my bread might act with different ingredients.  I should be stocking up soon on my good flour so I’ll see if that’s what the difference is.  If not, then I have no idea why my bread has turned crazy.  This just goes to show that baking is both a science and an art!  I’ll keep you posted on my efforts to eliminate those pesky holes.