On Food and Cooking

responsiveness to pressure that persists even after the kneader lets go. It’s these qualities of cohesive ...

We call a mixture of flour and water either a dough or a batter, depending on the relative proportions of ...

constitutes the bulk of the bread or cake. The outer surface, which usually has a dryer, denser texture, i ...

mixture of certain wheat proteins that can’t dissolve in water, but do form associations with wa ...

chains. To do this they require the availability of oxidizing agents — oxygen in the air, certain substances pr ...

toward its original shape when the pressure is removed. Thanks to this combination of properties, whea ...

stretching, but when the stretching is stopped, the molecules spring back to their compact coiled form. The vis ...

Gluten Relaxation Another important characteristic of wheat flour doughs is that their elasticity relaxes ...

cakes, griddle cakes, and cookies. For tender preparations, bakers intentionally limit the development of gluten. ...

less concentrated gluten and a softer, moister dough and bread. Stirring and kneading the flour-water mixture, ...

preventing them from bonding to each other. Acidity in the dough — as from a sourdough culture — which we ...

European root gel- ̧ which gave rise to a number of words meaning to form into a ball, to m ...

Starch The elastic gluten proteins are essential to the making of raised breads. But proteins account for only a ...

separate bubbles into a continuous spongy network of connected holes. If this didn’t happen, then at the en ...

European countries began stiffening their linen cloth with wheat starch. The word starch dates fr ...

influences the final texture of baked goods. The more bubbles produced during the preparation of a dough or b ...

and water alone, kneads the mix to develop the gluten, and only then works in the fat. Fats and related substan ...

distinguishing characteristic is the content and quality of gluten proteins, with high protein content and strong ...

gluten sheet gas bubbles Doughs and Batters: Representative Compositions The numbers shown indicate the rel ...

Protein Content, % by Weight Use Hard red spring wheat 13–16.5 Bread flours Hard red winter wheat 10– 13.5 All-purpos ...