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Message: [QUOTE="Norcalbaker59, post: 35036, member: 2340"] That’s a lot of baking soda. The standard is 1/4 teaspoon per cup of flour. While the amount can vary depending on ingredients and factors, you don’t want to deviate that far from the standard. I would scale back that baking soda considerably. I’m surprised you don’t have a bitter chemical taste from the baking soda. It’s better I think to use a combination of baking powder and baking soda in a quick bread. And you definitely do not want to develop the gluten. Make sure the flour you use has adequate protein. So no cake flour or pastry flour. And keep the sugar to flour ratio correct. More on that below. If you’re up to experimenting, these are the standards I would start with. [LIST] [*]3/4 tsp baking powder per 1 cup of flour [*]1/4 tsp baking soda per 1 cup of flour [*]1 large egg per 1 cup - 1 1/2 cups flour [/LIST] A pound of butter is a lot. Butter contains natural water. As do eggs. I think most of your moisture is from the butter and eggs. Butter is generally melted to evaporate some the natural water evaporates. So you may want to try melting the butter. And as I mentioned above, adjust your eggs to the standard of 1 large egg per 1 cup - 1 1/2 cup flour. A cup of sugar is 200g. So your recipe has 700g of sugar A cup of flour is between 120g - 140g, depending how you fill the measuring cup. So you have between 540g - 630g. If you fill your measuring cup by spoon and level, you will be around 540g. That means you have 36% more sugar to flour by weight. Sugar is a tenderizer. Too much sugar will cause a batter to collapse. Sugar is hygroscopic, meaning it absorbs water from its environment. With all that moisture in your butter and eggs, if you have too much sugar, it will draw moisture from the flour. If the flour does not have enough moisture, it won’t develop the structure to hold the bread together. If you do the dip and level method to fill your measuring cup, the flour weight would be closer to the 630g. The sugar then would only be 11% more than the flour by weight. An 11% difference would better stabilize your bread. It’s important to keep the sugar equal or just slightly more than the weight of the flour. [/QUOTE]

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