What happens when you knead bread dough?
Why do you (most of the time) knead the dough when baking bread? And what does it do with the bread?
(I was going to mark this question as Community Wiki, but I didn't have enough rep.)
Best Answer
Kneading dough has a few functions. First, it distributes the ingredients together evenly and allows the flour to become hydrated. As the flour starts to absorb water, enzymatic reactions occur and some proteins begin to mesh together. The two most important in this process are glutenin and gliadin. When these proteins start to get tangled up together, they form gluten, which is the protein that allows bread dough to stretch and trap gas bubbles produced by yeast. These reactions will occur on their own to an extent, as in no-knead recipes, but kneading accelerates the process.
Kneading also allows you to control the texture of the bread. A vigorous knead can help to produce a bread with a fine crumb as the kneading an tighten the gluten, keeping the air bubbles more uniform. Doing short kneading periods (or folds) spaced by time for the dough to relax and rise can give you more extensible dough which can help give you a more open crumb structure.
Finally, kneading is sometimes used to add inclusions to the dough that would disrupt it's activity if added to early. This can be things like seeds, which would cut gluten strands if included too early in the process, or things like butter in a brioche, which would shorten the dough if included before the gluten had already developed.
Pictures about "What happens when you knead bread dough?"
Quick Answer about "What happens when you knead bread dough?"
Kneading stretches and develops the gluten strands in the dough. The protein strands line up and this creates a gluten matrix in the bread which traps air and lets the bread rise.What does kneading do to bread dough?
Now, you may be wondering why we even have to knead dough in the first place. Kneading bread dough allows the protein molecules in the flour to form, creating healthy gluten strands. Gluten is what helps the mixture create gas, which helps it rise and build texture.What happens if you under knead bread dough?
Under Kneading Instead of rising, the dough will spread out flat. The dough may even fall back onto itself and collapse as the gases produced by the yeast escapes. Once baked, an under-kneaded bread loaf will be flat and dense in texture.5: Why do we knead bread dough? - Bake with Jack
Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Images: Klaus Nielsen, Klaus Nielsen, Flora Westbrook, Life Of Pix