PANS: A MATTER OF SIZE

Reader Contribution by Loretta Sorensen
Published on April 16, 2019
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It can be difficult to determine why bread doesn’t raise like you want it to. One surprising reason is that your pan may be too large.

Since I’m not a chef and learned all my cooking skills either at my mother’s elbow or through trial and error, I had no idea that some loaf pans aren’t really suitable for baking a two-pound loaf of bread. Until I started experimenting with my bread machine.

The front loaf in this photo clearly didn’t rise as high as the second because it was baked in a 9×5 loaf pan. The second was in a pan measuring 8.5×4.5. 

One-and-one-half pound and two-pound loaves are typically what you bake in a bread machine. Flour amounts for these recipes are generally 4 cups or less. This produces a good-sized loaf that will easily provide at least 12 slices of bread.

If your recipe calls for 5, 6 or even 7 cups of flour, you can – and will want to – use a larger loaf pan.

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