Bread and steamed bread are both pasta dishes that we often eat, and the main ingredient of both foods is wheat, and both are made after fermentation, why is there such a big difference in appearance, texture and taste?
We all know that compared to steamed bread, bread does use more ingredients, in addition to fermented flour, bread also needs to add eggs, oil, salt, butter and other accessories, but if it is because of this little bit of accessories, so that bread and steamed bread have pulled such a huge gap, it is really unbelievable, in order to thoroughly understand how bread is formed, it is necessary to figure out what bread has undergone in the process of forming.
When the bread and steamed bread are broken separately, the biggest difference in the internal structure of the two is the pores.
Steamed bread has no pores and has a soft internal structure, while bread is full of pores, and its internal structure is composed of porous bubble walls, and the formation of these pores begins when the bread is first placed in the oven. There is a certain amount of solid fat in the various trimmings added to the bread, which will gradually melt after entering the oven. Solid fats contain air and water, and as the fat melts, gases escape, which swell with carbon dioxide produced by yeast, pushing the bubble walls apart.
At the same time, the melted fat slides over the dough and coats it with gluten protein, egg protein, and starch.
Coated with fat, these substances become less absorbent, which is a good way to promote the formation of the structure inside the bread. Over time and as the temperature rises, the gas will push the bubbles to expand further, so the bread as a whole will expand rapidly, and all this happens in the early stages of baking, so when we start baking bread, we will find that the overall shape of the bread is basically done in the early stages. When the temperature inside the bread reaches 60°C or more, the expansion gradually slows down, because all the yeast inside the bread has been killed, so no new carbon dioxide is produced.
When the temperature reaches 70°C, the overall structure of the bread is very stable, thanks to the egg and gluten protein, which are the most important structural agents in the bread after it has dried and hardened.
At this point, another change is about to begin, there is a lot of sugar in the bread dough, and when this sugar melts, it forms a syrup, which flows slowly inside the bread, causing it to collapse and form pores. Closer to 80°C, the expansion of the bubbles in the bread finally reaches its limit, and as the bubble wall bursts, a large amount of gas will escape, after which the volume of the bread is completely fixed.
At close to 100°C, some carbonyl compounds such as amino acids and fructose in the protein will react, a brownish-black pigment will be produced, and the color of the whole dough will turn brown, which is why bread made from white dough will eventually become brown.
Why is the crust of bread often crispier and brighter than the inside of it? This is because steam is injected into the oven during the baking process to keep the surface of the bread moist and soft, which can prolong the overall expansion time of the bread and result in a fluffier loaf. It is precisely because of the constant steam injection that the formation time of the crust of the bread is delayed, which makes the crust thinner and because the steam promotes the gelatinization of the starch on the surface of the bread, the crust appears crispy and shiny.
This is what happens inside the bread forming process.
On the surface, compared to steamed bread, the bread only adds a limited number of ingredients and changes the cooking method, but it is these small changes that make the inside of the bread produce complex changes, thus giving birth to a completely different food from steamed bread. Although bread has a richer flavor and fuller texture than steamed bread, it does not mean that bread is necessarily better than steamed bread, different foods will bring people different feelings, and other foods are irreplaceable.