As you may know, I live near Seattle, Washington. This week brought historically high temperatures. My plan was to bake bread in the “cool” of the morning. The only problem was that it wasn’t really cool in the morning. It wasn’t cool for days on end. The yeast loved the high temperatures. My sandwich bread rose and rose. And then it fell.
If, heaven forbid, we have another heat wave like this, I’m going to add another quarter of a teaspoon of salt to the dough to deal with the over enthusiastic yeast.
That’s so funny! I just baked a loaf of bread today and it looks exactly like that! It wasn’t hot here today in Arkansas, but it was a little humid. Is that fallen top from too much yeast? I added honey instead of sugar. Would that have given the yeast too much good food?
Great question! In fact, you just inspired a blog post. (Thanks SO much for this inspiration. I just moved, and it’s been hard to start blogging again.) See Bread Troubleshooting – Bread that rises and then falls for some tips.