i managed to botch two loaves of quick bread

[fizzgig]

followed the recipe for both the chocolate sour cream bread and the cranberry bread, both got lovely crusts on the outside but were a wet, sticky mess on the inside near the bottom.

i'm really bummed out and at a loss as to what went wrong. is it my oven? could it have been the pans?

any suggestions?

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. What temp and time did you use?

That really sort of sounds like too high of a temp and too short of a time.

[fizzgig]

2. 350 for both

55 for the chocolate, 65 for the cranberry bread. what's really puzzling about the cranberry bread is that i used my mother's recipe and she's been using that recipe for 40 years with no issue.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

3. Weird, that sounds like a perfectly reasonable time and temp.

Are you cooking somewhere different than usual? Have you changed altitude dramatically?

[fizzgig]

4. i was in my own kitchen

i don't bake but rarely, so i'm really wondering if it isn't the oven and this is how i found out about it.

the end pieces of the cranberry bread were great, though. the rest of the loaf went to the critters.

[Warpy]

6. An oven thermometer is a cheap investment and will save your ass

I discovered them when I first went to Boston and started bouncing from slum apartment to slum apartment, all with stoves from the early 50, at the latest. The first accurate oven I've ever had in my life is the old Monkey Ward stove I have in this house.

[fizzgig]

8. i should have gotten ones years ago

shows you how quickly i move on things.

[cbayer]

5. A couple of things fizzgig.

I would check the oven temperature wit a thermometer.

Do you know the time honored trick for testing cakes and breads for doneness? A toothpick should come out clean. Sounds like that would not have happened in wither case.

So sorry.

[fizzgig]

7. toothpick came out clean

guess i should have jammed them down a bit deeper. top halves were done, bottom weren't.

[cbayer]

9. Yeah, you might need some longer bamboo sticks for bread.

Oh well. Better luck next time.

[japple]

10. If the top was done, but the bottom wasn't, I'm guessing it is your bake element

that has gone out. This is just based on past experience. I don't know nothin' bout no electricity.

[SheilaT]

11. Had you ever baked these same breads in that very oven?

I'm quite puzzled by the lovely outside crusts and wet, sticky mess inside.

Is there any chance your heating element went kablooie about ten minutes before they should have been done?

Otherwise, is there anything else at all that you did differently this time? Different flour? Different amount or kind of liquid? I'm guessing the leavening was okay, or you'd report that the loaves were flat or had over-risen.

Was there something drastically different about the humidity in your kitchen, compared to other times you'd baked these?

I'm scratching my head here. Let us know if you solve this mystery.

[Nac Mac Feegle]

12. As some thing to eliminate

Did you have something beneath the pan? A too-large cookie sheet could block off heat circulation. It does sound like your top heat was good, but the bottom heat was not. Could there best something that insulated the bottom of the pans? The bottom element going out could explain it if there was also a top element working, too.

Just a few guesses.

[csziggy]

13. What kind of pans? Are they the same material as what your mother used?

For instance, did she use metal pans and you're baking in glass or vice versa? For my yeast breads, I have to adjust cooking times if I use my glass ones or my commercial type metal ones - and the bottoms tend to come out wetter in the glass pans than in the metal ones.

Also, what kind of oven? I put a convection oven in this new house and have to adjust oven temperature and length of baking for some recipes - usually lower temperature and slightly shorter time, but it can vary. For some things, I can set it to regular bake, but now that I've adjusted to the convection, I use it for most things.

[Nac Mac Feegle]

14. Followup please

Please tell us what you found out about this, if you have.

Don't leave us 'hanging in the wind'.


If you've found the problem, or been able to reproduce the results, we'd like to know. It gives us something to watch out for.

I maintain that history is a catalog of the successes and failures of those who have gone before, and that should learn from it.