Flour ingredient for bread baking

Currently, bread is an important part of the diet for millions of people worldwide. Its complex nature provides energy, protein, mineral and many other macro and micronutrients. Wheat is the major source grain for bakery ingredients.

Wheat is normally categorized into hard and soft wheat as well as bread making and non-bread making. Almost all hard wheats are of bread making quality while soft wheats do have bread making quality while others do not.

Acceptance for bread making requires the wheat to pass tests on protein quantity, protein quality and falling number. Wheat flour is favored because it forms elastic doughs that contribute a light texture to baked goods with yeast or other leavening agent.

Wheat flour contains glutens, a family of proteins (gliaden and glutein) that gives dough its elasticity. Aging partially oxidizes the protein and creates flour that yields even more elastic dough for baking. 

During mixing, dough is exposed to large uni and biaxial deformations and a continuous protein networked is formed, which is stabilized by disulfide bonds and solidified thiol/disulfide interchange reactions.

The input of mechanical energy that takes places during kneading confers the necessary energy for distributing flour component, favoring the protein interaction and the formation of covalent bonds between them, which finally leads to the formation of the continuous macromolecular viscoelastic structure.
Flour ingredient for bread baking