Tip of the Day: Be gentle with your dough

by Shayna Glick, Posted Jul 29th 2008 @ 6:01AM

Are you making bread? Love your dough and it'll love you back.

Bread dough that has a slash in it so you can see the cell structure inside.

I know there's a misconception that the traditional way to treat bread dough is to beat it up, but I'm here to tell you that's wrong. The only bread that gets abused like that is industrial "wonder " type bread.

Bread dough needs to be treated with love and respect. From mixing to baking, be gentle. The best reason for this is that gentle treatment helps preserve the cell structure of the dough and thus the final bread. The cell structure, also called the crumb structure, is the network of holes that form the inside of the bread. It's almost always considered better for nice wide open holes in the bread.

The only way to get that structure is to make sure to handle the dough kindly. Always mix on low speed (for home stand mixers), degas the dough with a flat hand, and get under the dough with your fingers if you have to move it. Just be good to your dough and it'll return the favor once you get it out of the oven by being airy and delicious.

Filed Under: Tip of the Day
Tags: bread, cell structure, CellStructure, crumb structure, CrumbStructure, dough, gentle