Bread – What causes gaps/holes in homemade bread

bread

And how can I avoid them? This happens a lot when I make just regular white bread and almost every time I make cinnamon swirl bread. The top swirl creates a really big gap no matter how tight I roll the dough. Thoughts?

Swirling hole of mystery

Best Answer

It's typically a problem with large pockets of air in the dough before you bake it.

For the cinnamon swirl bread, try to make sure that you're not getting air trapped when rolling it.

For other loaves, you want to make sure to punch it down well after the first rise, and make sure you aren't trapping air in it if you're doing a stretch and fold when shaping it.