Are you as picky about the texture of your bread as I am?

Don’t get me wrong—I love big airy holes in a classic sourdough or ciabatta. But when I’m making sandwich bread or soft dinner rolls, I want a smooth, even crumb. No holes—or worse, tunnels. Nobody wants mayonnaise dripping out of a sandwich or jelly leaking through their toast.

Recently, I discovered a slick hack that’s made a big difference in the texture of my sandwich loaves and rolls.

Here’s the trick:​
When the DOUGH cycle finishes in your bread machine, don’t pull the dough out right away. Restart the DOUGH cycle and let it knead for just 1 minute—then stop the machine and take the dough out to shape by hand on your counter.

Why do this?​
• More effective than deflating the dough by hand
• Takes less time
• Reduces manual labor (especially helpful if you have arthritis)
• Requires less flour during shaping
• Helps eliminate those annoying holes and tunnels that surprise you when slicing

Three Caveats:​
• A minute or two of kneading (depending on the size of the recipe) is usually all that's needed.
• If your machine has a built-in preheat phase (that you can’t skip), this trick won’t work.
• After doing this, if the dough seems tight or resistant to shaping, cover and let it relax for 10–15 minutes before trying again.

Letting the machine do the work has improved the texture of all my fine-crumb recipes.

Have you ever tried this trick?
Do holes in your sandwich bread bother you too—or is that just me?
Am I the last person to figure this out?

I'd love to hear what works for you.

On a different note, this recipe for Yellow Squash Patties has been trending this month.

​Yellow Squash Patties for Dipping (No Grater Needed)​

These were fantastic, we only changed it slightly because we doubled the recipe, also switched out onion for an extra bell pepper but this is perfect if you have a ton of squashes from your garden. Sarah

Have a good weekend,

Paula

Home Economist + Bread Machine Fan

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P.S. Thanks to the Woks of Life website for sparking this idea. Although they don’t use bread machines, the concept translates beautifully to the DOUGH-cycle-plus-oven approach I swear by.