Biscuit pull-apart bread wouldn't cook!

[Jessi]

I have made similar recipes many, many times. For example, I have made monkey bread or pull-apart breads, using canned biscuit dough, and then cooking the appropriate amount of time, and it's delicious. I've done pizza breads this way before, too.

Well today, I split the biscuits into layers, placed cheese, pepperoni, and only a tiny bit of sauce in between, and layered them in a long loaf/bread pan. The recipe I checked with for the oven temperature said about 20 minutes. At the 20 minute mark, my dish was no where done, so I added another 10 minutes. And then another 10. And then after that, I ended up pulling the bread out into pieces and laying on a flat pan to cook some more.

At a total of a whopping 1 hour and 20 minutes, I finally had about half of the dish that was cooked through enough that we could eat it, with the edges all being almost burnt cheese, and the middles still being somewhat doughy, but at least cooked enough to be edible.

Holy cow! I have needed to let a dish cook a little long before, but a full extra hour, plus deconstruction, plus still not being ENTIRELY done is just ridiculous. Ouch.

 

[Becky]

Hmmm that's weird, do you have a link to the recipe? I wonder if there is an error with it...?

 

[Jessi]

Unfortunately, no, I don't. Because it didn't work, I didn't bother to save it.

It would've been very similar to this one:

http://www.justataste.com/2012/09/pepperoni-pizza-pull-apart-bread-recipe/

But it was with premade biscuit dough. I think maybe it comes down to having the sauce directly in it instead of as a separate dipping sauce. Maybe it just kept everything too moist?

 

[Becky]

Yeah, I expect you're right about the amount of moisture. In the recipe you posted they seem to use a very small amount of sauce and cheese, so perhaps try a smaller amount if you do it again? That being said, you only used a very small amount of sauce anyway, so who knows!

Might be a daft question, but you didn't accidentally use the grill setting instead of the oven setting did you? My father-in-law does this a lot, and results in food that is burnt on top but not cooked in the middle.

 

[Jessi]

Might be a daft question, but you didn't accidentally use the grill setting instead of the oven setting did you? My father-in-law does this a lot, and results in food that is burnt on top but not cooked in the middle.

I wish it were that simple! My oven only has a "bake" option for the main portion. The broiler/grill is in a completely different drawer at the bottom, so there's no way to mix it up on my oven.

 

[Becky]

Ah ok, told you it was a silly question!

Just a thought - could it be that your oven temp needs calibrating? Just seen the topic posted by mommy42: https://www.baking-forums.com/threads/had-to-have-my-oven-calibrated-the-other-day.1391/

 

[Jessi]

Hmm, ya know, that might actually be it. I haven't tested this particular one, but if the temperature is off, it could throw it off entirely.

The good news is, I'm moving soon and hopefully that means a new oven that might already be set correctly and I won't have to worry about it again. Combined with cutting down on the sauce and the recipe might still be worthwhile.

 

[Jcandy]

That's quite surprising. I completely rely on recipes available online as I think most of them are from expert chefs. There might be a mistake from your side. I suggest you that while cooking from a given recipe, make sure you follow every step carefully. Don't jumble the steps as it can effect the outcome of your recipe.

 

[NThomas]

I had this problem too, I found that the dish I put them in was too small. The biscutes were to tightly packed to bake well. Once I put them in to a large baking dish they were just fine.

 

[Jessi]

I had this problem too, I found that the dish I put them in was too small. The biscutes were to tightly packed to bake well. Once I put them in to a large baking dish they were just fine.

Hmm, you may be onto something there.

While I used the same size dish as recommended by the recipe, I DID think they were awfully cramped in there. When I pulled out a section to try to cook it separately, I did put it in a larger dish at that point to try to spread it out and help it cook better, so maybe that's just what I should do from the get-go.

Thanks!