I’ve baked a few breads and such in my life. They usually come out well. Recently I’ve been reading a few cookbooks, and have come across the assertion that the dough will become more elastic as you knead it. The short story: it doesn’t seem to.
The long story:
The books sometimes say to tear off a small piece when you start kneading. Stretch it, and it will break. Now knead the dough (I usually knead for 15 minutes), and after it’s kneaded, tear off a piece and stretch it. It should stretch beautifully.
Next few times I kneaded dough, I stretched at the beginning: it broke. Then I kneaded for 15 minutes and stretched at the end. It still broke. No change in elasticity at all. Puzzled, I knead for a little longer. Nope, still no change. I end up giving up and baking the darn thing anyway, and it inevitably turns out fine. One thing to note is that I can stretch the dough as a whole, but not very far. So I think there is some gain in elasticity, but evidently not very much.
So the question is, assuming that dough is supposed to get more elastic, why doesn’t it seem to? Is it possible to knead it so that the dough is good, yet unelastic? Perhaps I am not kneading it enough? Could the “pinch off a piece and tear it” test be innacurate?
The elasticity will be governed by at least a couple of factors:
The amount of liquid added versus the absorbency of the flour; too dry a dough will be very hard to knead to an elastic consistency (but then your bread would be like a brick, so you’d know.
The gluten content of the flour, essentially ‘strong’ bread flours (milled from ‘hard’ wheat) contain around 13 percent protein, ordinary plain flours contain less than 9 percent.
All of the recipe books say you *must[/]i use strong flour to get a good result, but IMHO, this simply isn’t true.
I tend always to make round, flattish loaves anyway (because they have a greater crust/crumb ratio and the crust is the best bit), So I have found that i can use ordinary plain flour (for which I pay 9 pence a bag) and get a perfectly acceptable result. If I use ‘strong’ (or ‘extra strong’) flour, my bread tends to be too stretchy - I could have played tennis with the rolls made with extra strong flour.
If the bread you’re making comes out Ok and you’re happy with the result, then why worry about what the books say?
use the heel of your hand to push down and away on the middle of the ball, flattening it
fold the bit you just flattened back towards the centre
turn the dough about a quarter turn
repeat from 2.
I usually find that the dough takes on a ‘silky’ texture after about 10 mins kneading and I knead for about another 5 mins from that point, I don’t use the pinch off and stretch method.
One possibility is that you do not have enough moisture in your dough. Flour to water ratios will vary from day to day depending on humidity levels, so you cannot always rely on exact measurements. Start out with 1/2 cup flour less than the recipe calls for, then work in that flour as needed while you’re kneading.
Another possibility is that you may be over-kneading. I don’t know how enthusiastically you knead your dough, but you may be over-doing it. I tend to knead my doughs like a large Russian massuse named Olga, so I find that I only need around 6 to 10 minutes. Over-kneading will cause your dough to become tough, and will also cause your dough to tear when trying that dough test. The dough test I learned in culinary school is to pull a bit of dough away and if you can stretch it thin enough to see light through it, it’s ready.
Are you using All Purpose Flour? A.P. Flour does have a lower gluten content than Bread Flour, and this also will have an effect on the elasticity of the dough.
Your bread is going to come out seemingly fine with the way you describe it, the only problem is that it’s just not going to rise as high, is all. It’s still very edible.
Yesterday I made some more dough for a pizza I’ll bake today. It was about a third bread flour, two thirds all-purpose. I paid extra attention to the elasticity, and resolved to pass the seemingly impossible elasticity test. I started out with a sticky dough, so the water content was fine. I added flour until it no longer stuck the board. After kneading it, I kept checking the elasticity by stretching a piece of the dough. It tore quite easily each time I tried.
So I kept kneading. The dough got a bit resistent, which I would usually take a sign to stop kneading. But the elasticity test still failed. So I kept kneading and testing, kneading and testing. At this point my dough needed no more flour to knead.
On and on I kept kneading and testing. When about twenty-five minutes had passed I figured it’s never going to get elastic. I was afraid I had overkneaded it, but if I had, it never got elastic at all throughout the process. Also, from what I understand, the dough should pretty much collapse upon overkneading.
Anyway, my point is, I seemed to do everything right. My dough had enough water. It wasn’t overkneaded. It was kneaded for what should have been plenty of time. But still no appreciable gain in elasticity. I’m a bit frustrated.
As to the suggestions, ENugent suggested that warm water may cause inelasticity. I did use warm water - I had to, I’m using yeast. Everyone using yeast has to use warm water as far as I can tell. So no one would propose some test of elasticity that would not work for normal bread. Likewise the suggestion that the type of flour may have something to do with it is reasonable, yet the elasticity test never is given with the restriction that it only works on bread flour.
Anyway, I have no idea why my dough is still not elastic. I’m guesing the likeliest cause of it is adding too much flour when kneading. I will keep at it. I WILL get elastic dough!
The water has to be pretty hot to cause a major problem - probably hot enough to kill the yeast. I have some nonyeast recipes that call for boiling water to achieve the inelastic effect.
Have you ever tried a sponge method? I find the dough kneads better that way, and the bread seems to rise higher. Dissolve the yeast in the water, then mix in about 1/4-1/3 of the dough called for in the recipe. Let this “sponge” stand in a warm place until it at least doubles in bulk (this doesn’t take too long - 15-20 minutes if you put the bowl of sponge in another bowl of hot water). Then knead in the rest of the flour and other dry ingredients, right in the bowl. Don’t worry about sticking, just keep scraping it off the sides and pressing it together (think mud pies). Once it smooths out some, you can transfer it to a board for further kneading, but don’t work too much flour into it. You should expect to have to scrape some sticky dough off your board when you’re done.
Well I don’t expect any more help on this… I’m not sure what else anyone can say. Making dough seems to be a purely physical skill, like riding a bike (what psychologists call “procedural memory”). No one can explain what I have to do to get this elasticity. Probably for me to get it right at this point I’d have to have someone who can get the elasticity show me how it’s done, or watch what I do and critique.
But one question should be easy to answer: When kneading the dough, at the point where it gets a bit resistent, is that also when the dough should be most elastic? Or is further kneading still required?
Well, if your bread does turn out fine (reasonably light, lots of medium sized holes), then you are kneading correctly, by definition. And you must be actually getting plenty of elasticity because the bread won’t come out fine without it.
Could be you just aren’t recognizing it 'cause the change is less obvious than you’re looking for. You’re not going to get an untearable rubber band, but you should notice that when you pull apart a walnut sized piece of well-kneaded dough, it will tend to form strands or sheets before separating, unlike unkneaded dough, which will sort of come apart all at once.
If you know anyone who bakes, have them look at your dough (or vice versa), and have them point out the changes. Again, if the bread rises well, then it is happening, you just don’t recognize it. But again, if the bread is fine, why bother?
Oh, and incidentally and probably more than you want to know, you don’t need all warm water if you’re using yeast – you only need 1/4 cup or so of warm water to dissolve the yeast in for a minute or two. The rest of the water can be cold (it will just take a little longer for the bread to rise).
Happy baking (and more importantly, happy eating!)
Thanks for the input, Quercus. I had the same suspicions that I just was unable to recognize the elasticity. I imagined the test is that you tear a piece of walnut sized dough, and stretch it so that at least the middle of it forms a very thin sheet.
I simply cannot do this. However, you are right, I do tend to get something like a sheet before it seperates, and in this it is different than unkneaded dough. However, it seperates well before reaching any sort of thinness. I cannot stretch it more than a few inches. I suspect I’m getting some elasticity, then, but certainly not anywhere close to the full amount. And as someone suggested, my breads will come out fine, but not as good as they could.