The Perfect Baking Moment

In one of the most delightful cookbooks I have ever read, The Supper of the Lamb (Pocket Books, 1970), Robert Capon, the author, cautions bakers not to wait until the loaf is fully risen but to pop it in the oven while it is still on the rise. In a properly timed loaf, the oven spring, which can be as much as 15 percent of the total rise, will produce an evenly rounded rather than a mushroomed or flattened dome. If you wait until the loaf is exactly where you want it to finish and then bake it, the loaf bread will mushroom and a French-style bread will spread out rather than up.