One of the most common reasons for dense bread is over or under-kneaded dough. Kneading your dough directly affects gas production, as it increases the rate that fermentation occurs. Without kneading, bread dough will take much longer to ferment fully.
Dense or heavy bread can be the result of not kneading the dough mix properly –out of many reasons out there. Some of the other potential reasons could be mixing the yeast & salt together or losing your patience while baking or even not creating enough tension in the finished loaf before baking the bread.
Under-proofing is the most common cause of a dense (and occasionally, gummy) crumb texture. A rushed final rise produces less gas, making the crumb compact and dense. To resolve under proofing, let your bread rise longer the next time. In most cases, this alone will fix your dense bread.
Store airtight with the two cut halves facing each other and pressed together. Wrapping bread to retain moisture keeps it soft, though it robs crusty artisan bread of its crispy crust. Wrapping in plastic (or foil) rather than cloth keeps bread soft longer.
For a fluffy bread texture, the key is to let the bread rise long enough. Now, you may be wondering “how long does it take for bread to rise?” The short answer is that it depends on the temperature of your kitchen. For bread to rise, yeast must be activated, and yeast is very sensitive to temperature.
There's something magical about the bread you get at your local bakeries - they're always sooo soft and fluffy. Many of these breads, especially packaged ones, are made with a ton of chemical additives such as calcium propionate, amylase, and chlorine dioxide which help keep them soft, light, and fluffy for days.
Getting the amount of flour right is vital due to the high flour ratio to the other bread ingredients. Measuring one or two tablespoons too much per cup (easy to do) can cause your bread to be dense.
The first way to soften breads is to add fat somehow. Liquid fats are your best bet from sandwich breads or soft rolls. It could be as easy as replacing some if not all of the water in the recipe with whole milk.
Then it's just an addition of a teaspoon of yeast, about 0.3 ounces of salt, and sugar (if you're proofing the yeast, otherwise it's not necessary unless you're going for a bread with some sweetness). No matter what amount you choose, the rules hold. The ratio is 5:3.
If your dinner rolls aren't fluffy it could be because of one of two reasons. Either, you added too much flour or you possibly used all bread flour. Alternately, not giving your dinner rolls enough time to proof and get puffy before baking could yield dense rolls.
If your dough feels dense and tough to handle when you stop the mixer, it is a sign that it is becoming over-kneaded. Over-kneaded dough can become very hard to work with and produce a more flat and chewy bread.
Kneading for 10-12 minutes by hand or 8-10 minutes in a mixer are the general standards; if you've been massaging the dough for that length of time, you can be pretty confident that you've done your job.
Adding salt prevents the yeast from reproducing too quickly, thus allowing you to control the rate at which the dough ferments.
Leavening Agents
Make baked products rise and become light and porous.
Baking with oil not only requires less work, and results in fewer dirty dishes, than butter, but it also produces tender, moist baked goods that get better with age and boast an impressively long shelf-life.
An excess of flour can create a stiff, dry dough. A perfectly kneaded dough springs back when poked with your finger and will feel soft and silky in texture.
The sugar forms strong bonds with water molecules so it helps to keep baked goods soft and moist. Additionally, adding a small amount of sugar will result in a denser texture, such as bread or rolls, and a larger amount of sugar will give a light fluffy texture, such as for cake and other pastries.
And by all means, try ½ to 1 teaspoon of distilled white or cider vinegar (avoid anything too conspicuous like balsamic or sherry vinegar) stirred into the ice water in the recipe.
The fat coats the gluten strands and makes the finished product more tender—both the crumb and crust—and it makes the crumb more finely grained. It also makes the loaf seem moister. Breads that are made with fat in them don't dry out as quickly, so the shelf life is improved.
Baking Soda
It's used to chemically leaven doughs and batters when it is mixed with an acid. Combining baking soda with an acid produces a chemical reaction that releases carbon dioxide gas which causes the food to expand and become fluffy.
These gases get trapped inside the dough buy the mesh the gluten makes. This is what causes your bread to be airy and fluffy. This mesh is formed by kneading the dough. If you do not knead a dough enough you do not give your bread a chance as the gluten did not have enough time to build that mesh.
Using too much baking soda or baking powder can really mess up a recipe, causing it to rise uncontrollably and taste terrible.