The first step is to know about flour! To make bread, you need to use high-gluten flour, which is one of the keys to delicate bread organization. High gluten flour refers to flour with a particularly high content of protein, which is generally above 1 1.5%, with an average of 13%. Some TX said that supermarkets can't buy high-gluten flour. My advice is to look for it in a large supermarket or simply buy it online. After all, it is essential to make bread. Jiaozi flour is not high gluten flour-this requires special attention. I don't know where the concept of "jiaozi flour is high gluten flour" came from, but I know it is deeply rooted in many TX minds. As long as you pay a little attention, you will find that the protein content of jiaozi flour is mostly between 10- 1 1%, which can't meet the standard of high-gluten flour and still belongs to the category of medium-gluten flour. However, the content of protein in medium gluten flour is the highest, so it can be used as a stopgap measure without high gluten flour. How to judge the gluten of flour? There is the simplest way. Grab a handful of flour, rub it with your hands and loosen your hands. If the flour is scattered immediately, it proves that the gluten is high. If the flour remains lumpy, it proves that the gluten is very low. The second and most important step: mixing the dough. There is a saying that in the process of bread making, correct fermentation affects the quality of bread by 90%. I deeply disagree with this. In my opinion, the mixing of dough and the fermentation of dough are in the same important position, which also affects the success or failure of bread. Attention! Understanding the importance of bread mixing will help you make successful bread! Mixing noodles is what we commonly call "kneading noodles". Its purpose is to form gluten. In order to help you understand this concept, I must talk about the formation process of gluten and its role in bread making: gluten is a dense, reticulate and elastic structure composed of wheat and protein. After adding water to the flour, protein in the flour will gradually gather to form gluten through continuous stirring. The longer the stirring time, the more gluten is formed. Gluten can wrap the air produced by yeast fermentation, forming countless tiny pores. After baking, protein solidifies to form a solid structure, which supports the bread structure. So the amount of gluten determines whether the texture of bread is delicate enough. Less gluten, rough tissue and large pores; Gluten, fine tissue and small pores. This is why high-gluten flour is used to make bread. Only a high content of protein can form enough gluten. It should be emphasized that only wheat protein can form gluten, which is the characteristic of wheat protein. No other protein has this property. Therefore, only wheat flour can make soft bread. Other rye flour, oat flour, miscellaneous grains flour, etc. Can't form gluten, it must be mixed with wheat flour to make bread. Some bakers will use 100% rye flour to make bread, but the texture of this bread will be very dense, because there is no gluten, and delicate tissues cannot be formed. (TX once asked: If I add some protein to medium gluten flour, will it become high gluten flour? Now you should understand that unless wheat protein is added, adding any other protein such as soybean protein and milk protein will not affect the gluten content. ) the process of kneading dough: kneading dough is a very hard work. In order to produce enough gluten, we must spend a lot of energy on kneading dough. Breads from different places need to be kneaded to different degrees. In order to keep soft enough, many sweet breads don't need too much gluten, just knead them to the swelling stage. Most toast needs to be kneaded until it is full. What are the expansion phase and the completion phase? Through continuous stirring, the strength of gluten gradually increases and it can form a film. Take a small piece of dough and open it by hand. When the dough can form a transparent film, but the strength of the film is average, after being punctured by hand, the broken edge is irregular. At this time, the dough is in the expansion stage. Continue to stir until the dough can form a tough film, which is not easy to break by hand. Even if it is punctured, the fracture will appear smooth and round due to tension. At this time, the dough has reached a complete stage. About what kind of bread needs to be kneaded to what stage, there will be instructions in each recipe, and you can follow the recipe. If mechanical stirring is used, excessive stirring is also common. After the dough is kneaded to a complete stage, if it is still stirred, the gluten will break, the dough will become soft and collapse, and lose its elasticity, which will eventually lead to the roughness of the finished product. Therefore, excessive stirring should be avoided as much as possible. If you knead dough by hand, are there any skills? Yes Everyone will develop their skills in the process of kneading dough. There was no blender before. At that time, the baker put the dough on the stone platform, and his body was close to the stone platform, helping to knead the dough with the strength of his body and buttocks. At that time, bakers were often tough. Housekeeping doesn't need to knead so much dough, it will be much easier. The strength and speed of kneading are the key. Accelerating the kneading speed can often greatly shorten the kneading time. In addition, you can also use throwing, hitting, rolling and so on. But in short, kneading dough is hard work. Some recipes have very high water content and are very sticky, so it is very difficult to knead by hand. At this time, you can stir with a rolling pin, but it will take a lot of effort. Therefore, even if you like and insist on kneading dough by hand, it is necessary to buy a toaster to help you. There are many other kinds of kneading dough: the purpose of kneading dough is not only to produce gluten, but also to make yeast, oil and sugar evenly distributed in dough. Mixing is also a part of kneading dough. In this regard, many TX companies use the post-oiling method, that is, kneading materials other than butter into dough, and then adding butter. In fact, adding butter in advance is more conducive to the even distribution of oil in dough. You can try a method: just like the butter-feeding method for making cream cakes, first stir butter, sugar, eggs and other materials evenly, then add water or other liquid materials, stir a little, and finally add flour and yeast to knead into dough. All kinds of sweet bread are very suitable for this method, which can create a more uniform emulsification system. The third and second important step is that dough fermentation is a complicated process. Simply put, yeast decomposes starch and sugar in flour to produce carbon dioxide gas and ethanol. Carbon dioxide gas is wrapped by gluten, forming uniform and fine pores, which makes the dough swell. Fermentation needs proper control. Insufficient fermentation, small size, rough texture and insufficient flavor of bread; Excessive fermentation will make the dough sour and sticky, making it difficult to operate. Primary fermentation, intermediate fermentation and secondary fermentation: Unless time is very tight, we can stir the dough after primary fermentation, set it and bake it. At other times, secondary fermentation is needed. Because the product fermented once, no matter its texture or flavor, can't be compared with the product fermented twice. In the professional field, primary fermentation and secondary fermentation have two special words to reflect their differences (fermentation and proofing), while in home making, we only need to know that delicious bread is made by secondary fermentation. Long-term fermentation will increase the flavor of bread, so some recipes use refrigerated fermentation, and through long-term fermentation at low temperature, bread with unique taste can be obtained. However, cold storage fermentation has a disadvantage, that is, the fermentation time is not well controlled, which easily leads to over-fermentation or under-fermentation. In modern times, this shortcoming has been solved, that is, the cold storage fermentation is combined with the middle seed method, and the simple cold storage fermentation method is no longer used. In this regard, I will make a detailed blog post on China law in the future. The first fermentation, how to judge that it has been fermented? The dough of ordinary bread can generally be fermented to 2-2.5 times the size. If you dip your finger in flour and poke a hole in the dough, the hole will not retract. If the dough around the hole collapses, it means that it is over-fermented. Fermentation time is related to the sugar content, oil content and fermentation temperature of dough. Generally speaking, ordinary dough needs about 1 hour at 28 degrees. If the temperature is too high or too low, the fermentation time should be shortened or extended accordingly. After the first fermentation, we need to lose weight on the dough Vent the fat dough, "thin" it again, then cut it into the required size, knead it into smooth balls, and carry out intermediate fermentation. In the middle of fermentation, I woke up again. The purpose of this step is for the next plastic surgery. Because if it is not proofed, the dough will be difficult to stretch, which will bring trouble to dough forming. Intermediate fermentation can be carried out at room temperature. General 15 minutes. After the intermediate fermentation is completed, we can shape the dough into the required shape. This is also a very important one, which directly determines whether the bread you make is beautiful enough. The shaping method of each kind of bread is different, and you can follow the recipe. It should be noted that all the gases in the dough must be paid attention to when molding. As long as there is gas left in the dough, it will eventually become a big hole when baked. The second fermentation (also called final fermentation) is generally required at a temperature of about 38 degrees. In order to keep the dough from losing water, there should be more than 85% humidity. Many TX asked me how to keep this temperature and humidity condition. Industrial production has a special fermentation box. However, there is no such condition for home cooking, so we have to settle for the second best and try our best to create a similar environment: arrange the dough on the baking tray, put it in the oven, put a plate of boiling water at the bottom of the oven and close the oven door. Water vapor will produce the required temperature and humidity in the enclosed space of the oven. When using this method, it should be noted that when the boiling water is gradually cooled, if the fermentation is not complete, it needs to be replaced in time. The final fermentation usually takes about 40 minutes. Ferment until the dough is twice as big. The fourth step is almost successful-before baking, we need to brush some liquid on the bread surface to make the baked bread have beautiful colors. These brush liquids are water, milk, whole egg liquid, egg liquid or yolk liquid. Different brush liquids have different effects. For example, water is mainly used to brush the surface of hard bread; Whole egg liquid is suitable for most sweet bread. The specific brush solution will be given in the prescription. When baking the last fermented dough in the oven, be careful not to touch the dough hard. At this time, the dough is very soft and delicate, and a little force may leave ugly marks on the surface of the dough, so be more careful. When baking, according to the temperature and time given in the recipe. Pay attention to observation, and don't color too deeply to affect the appearance. The fifth step is the preservation of bread, which many TX may ignore. Freshly baked bread is soft, but it will harden if it is not kept properly. In fact, bread can remain soft for a long time as long as it is made through the correct steps. If your bread hardens after a few hours, it may be time to consider whether there is a problem with the method of making it. Bread can generally be stored at room temperature. If you want to keep it for a long time, you can put it in the freezer of the refrigerator. When you want to eat, take it out and bake it in the oven to restore softness. But-never put it in the refrigerator! The temperature in the refrigerator will accelerate the aging of starch in bread and greatly shorten the shelf life of bread. At this point, this article is coming to an end. Do you have any questions about bread? Yes, and there must be a lot! Every different kind of bread will encounter different problems. After mastering the basic theory, it is very important to learn to analyze the problems that appear every time, so as to continuously improve your level. It is not a distant dream to make bread that tastes as good as or even better than those sold outside.