Bread

You could try an egg wash :)

I agree with Eric. Try a wash. Also, increasing the sugar in the dough will increase browning as will baking it longer. You can use an egg wash (beat and egg with a little water or milk) to start with. The steam will make the crust chewy but it will not give you a brown color like the wash.

Not sure what kind of bread you are baking, but if it is a "lean" bread", e.g. baguette, I would suggest you raise the temp to 500F. That is the normal temp for such breads (if you have a commercial oven, I would suggest

550F). After about 7 minutes, lower the temp to 450F.

If you have an electric oven check to see if the top element hasn't burnt out.

If that's not the problem, try putting your baked goods under the broiler until the desired amount of browning occurs. I will sometimes do this with bread, and with nearly every pizza and lasagne I make.

When my bread is within a degree or two of its desired internal temperture I just turn on the broiler for another minute or two to increase the bread's color.

It is no different than anything else in baking. You need to get the time/temperature right. Baking at a lower temperature for a longer time will tend to give you lighter crust while baking at a longer time at a higher temperature witll give you a darker crust, all other things being equal (like the internal temp of the crumb.)

Spritzing the bread with water during early part of the bake shouldn't affect color. It will, however, make the crust a little thinner. Take care.

Fred Foodie Forums

For whatever it's worth - you know, they keep telling us we're too judgmental and not helpful enough - here's more helpful.=20

Other possible causes for the crust being blonder than you wanted it to be:=20

Too low hydration.=20

For me, denser loaves always have a lighter crust. For various reasons it's easy to use technically too much flour and still get an acceptable loaf, but not everything will be the same. Too dense and you won't get as much rise from steam, so the crust will be denser (more massive) and require more BTUs to brown.=20

Unless you're measuring by weight, or have some sort of superpower or high tech bionic technology, "1 cup" is rarely "1 cup". It's not your fault that you probably get a slightly different hydration level every time.

Also, the visual cues that we are taught when people teach us to make bread can be deceptive - it's easy to add flour too quickly and achieve the "right" texture of dough in the bowl, when in actuality you've gone too far. It took me a while to figure out that my dough should be sticker than it had been, and that it would look just like dad's if i let it knead in the mixer for another few minutes instead of adding that last cup of flour.

The oven at the bakery probably has a lower ceiling.

This will mean more reflected radiated heat hitting the top, and also tighter convection currents that retain more heat. I don't have a suggestion for how to fix this, just pointing it out.=20

But the egg wash is old-hat ace-in-the-hole stuff for really dark browning.=20

Speaking of measuring by weight, does anybody want to make an offer on my old digital scale? I just bought a nice Salter out of the clearance dump at BB&B, 65% off or so.

Made by Cuisinart, my old scale was the lowest rated digital scale reviewed by Consumer Reports. I paid 83 cents for it at a thrift store. I think i got my money's worth.=20

The controls are attached to the part of the scale that the food goes on, meaning that it's hard to hit the tare button without affecting the weight reading. Also, while it supports metric measurement, it starts up measuring ounces every time you turn it on, and since the buttons are on opposing sides of the control panel, it's tricky to hit the metric button without hitting the tare button at the same time, or the other way around either.=20

Additionally, as a one-piece all-plastic design, you can't throw the tray in the dishwasher to sterilize it after portioning out raw meat. You have to think ahead and wrap it in plastic, or put it inside a 1 gallon freezer bag.=20

You won't measure yeast with it, since it's sensor has a granularity of about 5 grams, but it should be basically sufficient for water/flour ratios and certainly up to the task of ensuring uniform dough lump size. It is also quite small, taking up slightly less space in your cupboard than a 9" pie pan.=20

bread in the oven I

I've done it for shine, but that would be about five minutes before removing it from the oven.

At the start of the bake the dough is too cold tobe affected by the water.

For lean doughes w/no fat or added sugar.

Wash with Use 1 whole egg for softer 1 egg white for harder crust throw in a pinch of salt and two pinches of sugar.

Or use milk 'n' sugar for a soft crust.

Store bought bread usually has some sort of sugar/milk in the dough which gives it color.

btw Lack of salt in the dough will cause pale bread.

Howdy,

The OP has seen many good suggestions, but...

I would start with a good oven thermometer. Many ovens are way out of calibration.

400F is low for baking a lean bread, but even with that said, does the OP actually know the temperature of the oven?

All the best,

You don't want to spray the actual loaf of bread with the water. For best results the loaf itself should actually be dry before you put it in the oven. When you put the bread in the oven take a spray bottle and spray a generous amount of water in the interior of your oven to generate a lot of steam. Just make sure you don't spray the bread itself. Spray the wall of your oven. Close the oven door and keep it shut for about 30 seconds. After the 30 seconds are up open the oven door to release most of the steam and then close it again and let the bread finish baking. If you want to soften up the crust then let the bread cool and then place it inside a sealed plastic bag. Within hours the bread will soften up. If you want it to remain crusty then you should store it in loosely folded paper bag.

Howdy,

With respect, spraying the oven does little for the bread...

In fact, it probably makes things worse. You want the heat of the oven to go into the bread, but with the method you suggest, much of that heat is wasted changing the water to steam. That cools the oven dramatically. (Most home ovens are little more than sheet metal boxes filled with heated air. There is so little hot mass that the temperature drops significantly just by introducing the cool dough.)

A vastly better approach is to have a boiler on the range top with a tube to convey steam into the oven itself. That is actually very easy to do, and is inexpensive too.

But, the unfortunate reality is that any effort to create steam inside the oven is likely to be counterproductive.

All the best,

That's the whole idea. I used to work for Kroger's too in the bakery department as a baker. I worked there for over 10 years. Steaming the bread did lower the temperature of the oven by as much as

25 degrees or more. However, the steam only remained in the oven for about 25 seconds before the blower kicked on and pulled it all out. Here is a website that explains how this happens. One time I had to use the deli's ovens to bake the bread becausethe bakery oven was being fitted with a new ignitor. The deli ovenswere more like your home oven. The only difference was that they wereslightly larger, probably about 50% bigger. I put the trays of breadin the oven, sprayed the inside of the oven real good with water andthen shut the oven door. After 30 seconds I opened the oven door to letthe excess steam out and then closed it again to let the oven come backup to temperature and let the bread finish baking. The bread turned outfine.

Hello again,

With sincere respect to you, the good people of Kroger's, and to the author of the piece at the link you provided, I disagree (completely).

When you say that the "bread turned out fine" what are you comparing it to? In an oven that has proper steam, there is virtually no droop in temperature with the addition of steam so the baker gets the benefits of the higher temperature and the steam. (The reason that there is virtually no drop in temperature is that even though the steam is only at 212F very little water in the form of steam is actually added and compared to the mass of the oven, that amount is truly trivial.)

All the best,

and no "drop" either... 'Sorry,

Okay, the bread turned out nice and golden and crusty on the outside and fluffy and soft on the inside. Is that a good enough assessment?

If you are happy, I am happy.

All the best,

I don't agree with this

I sat and watched my younger sister experiment with salt levels and browning in quickbreads, and there was a very clear correlation.

So, agree with it or not, I've seen the research first hand. There are probably other factors in yeasted, loaf breads.