Commercial breakdown

Although the large industrial baking companies have almost eliminated unpredictability from baking bread, sometimes things still go wrong. I still have to buy mass-produced bread from time-to-time, and last week I picked up a loaf that illustrated this fact perfectly.

At first I thought it had been crushed in my shopping bag but, upon closer inspection, I was surprised to discover that the whole loaf had been baked into the peculiar hourglass profile you can see in the photo below. Something must have gone wrong during the rise, because there are areas of pasty, partially-baked dough around the edges, just beneath the crust. Overall, the crumb is quite dense and grey-tinged. It was just about tolerable toasted.

If I’d baked this at home, it would have gone straight in the compost bin. In all fairness, the company concerned responded quickly when I complained, but they wanted to collect a sample, by which time it was turning green, so I decided to put this one down to experience.