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What Is Gluten
What Is Gluten
BSND 101
May 2020
What is Gluten?
For recipes such as cakes, pizza doughs and muffins, we use wheat flour. All wheat flours
contain two important proteins: glutenin and gliadin. With the presence of water, these two proteins
will change shape and bond together. As a result, an elastic network of proteins called gluten will be
formed. It has the ability to trap air and allows breads to rise and cakes to form structure.
The chef in the video performed an experiment for us to better understand what exactly is gluten.
other one, he used bread flour that contains the most amount of protein and is not bleached.
Then, he washed the starch away by placing each dough in a strainer and massaging it in
running water until the water became clear. With the starch washed away, the gluten became visible.
The two doughs looked different from each other in terms of size and texture. The one made from cake
flour formed a very small amount of weak gluten while the other one made from high protein bread flour
formed a large ball that he describes as highly resilient and rubbery. To prove how elastic the formed
gluten ball is, he inflated it with compressed air. The result revealed that it formed exactly like an
inflated balloon.
High protein bread flour is used for breads because it develops a lot of flexible gluten that, as
observed in the experiment, acts like a balloon which traps air and creates high rising loaves. On the
turning it to huff.