On Under-Baked Bread and What to Do With It

Sometimes I like to bake bread.  After lots of trial and error, I have settled on two main tools that make this easy and enjoyable for me: parchment paper and a thermometer.  Parchment paper helps bread not to stick to pans, and it does this job beautifully.  The thermometer tells me when the bread is done.

So, how do you know when bread is done baking.

There are three main ways (thanks, Smitten Kitchen) to tell if bread is done:

1. It's brown on the outside -- This is not sufficient if you've got a tall/thick kind of bread like a sandwich loaf in a pan.
2. It sounds hollow if you tap it on the bottom with a stick (i.e. wooden spoon handle). This is very useful for smaller things like rolls and ciabatta.  It also works pretty well for sandwich loaves.  
3. A thermometer measures around 200F.  Sometimes 190 is fine.  Less than 190 is not fine, even if you've passed the cook time suggested in the recipe.  I bought my thermometer for cheap at a local hardware store.

But sometimes (much less often now that I have that thermometer), I will pull the bread out too soon.  And I cut into the bread, and it's gummy.  Gummy!  So then what? One can't exactly put it back into the oven once it's cooled and cut open.  And I hate throwing out food.  So I present:

Seven things to do with under-baked bread:

1. Toast 
2. French Toast
3. Grilled Cheese sandwiches
4. Stuffing/Dressing
5. Bread pudding  (since the bread's on the wetter side, you can probably ease up on the milk)
6. Shredded for breadcrumbs, like for the top of baked macaroni.
7. Cubed and toasted for croutons

Make sure to refrigerate your under-baked bread until it's gone. Since you'll be cooking it again, you don't so much need to worry about staleness, and it will go bad faster than ordinary bread.

I do especially recommend grilled cheese for this stuff.  Good luck!