On Food and Cooking

Kneading dough. Kneading repeatedly
stretches and elongates the gluten, helping to
orient the long chains and encourage the side-
by-side bonding that contributes to gluten
strength.
Kneading also aerates the dough. As it’s
repeatedly folded over and compressed,
pockets of air are trapped and squeezed under
pressure into smaller, more numerous
pockets. The more pockets formed during
kneading, the finer the texture of the final
bread. Most of the air pockets are
incorporated as the dough reaches its
maximum stiffness.
Some bread recipes call for a bare
minimum of kneading. This generally results
in fewer and larger air cells, and so a coarse,
irregular texture that has its own appeal. The
gluten of such doughs is less developed as