Baking
Baking is the final and most important step in the baking process. One one hand, heat induced chemical reactions convert the existing protein strands and organic molecules into new ones to properly 'cook' the bread and on the other, a controlled collapse of the yeast-created carbon dioxide bubbles into larger, more cohesive ones gives the bread its final, internal texture. This process of collapse is also one of the most physically interesting parts of baking - the increased heat induced by the oven expands the volume of the gases in the existing air bubbles which in turn exerts a shearing force on the elastic, gluten-based walls of the bubbles. Dobraszczyk (2003) determined that good bread essentially lies on a happy medium in this shearing process, poor flour will collapse too soon and prevent the formation of nice, large bubbles in the bread or it will collapse too late or not at all and produce ungainly bubbles that ruin the texture of the bread.
Baking is the final and most important step in the baking process. One one hand, heat induced chemical reactions convert the existing protein strands and organic molecules into new ones to properly 'cook' the bread and on the other, a controlled collapse of the yeast-created carbon dioxide bubbles into larger, more cohesive ones gives the bread its final, internal texture. This process of collapse is also one of the most physically interesting parts of baking - the increased heat induced by the oven expands the volume of the gases in the existing air bubbles which in turn exerts a shearing force on the elastic, gluten-based walls of the bubbles. Dobraszczyk (2003) determined that good bread essentially lies on a happy medium in this shearing process, poor flour will collapse too soon and prevent the formation of nice, large bubbles in the bread or it will collapse too late or not at all and produce ungainly bubbles that ruin the texture of the bread.
Image source:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Freshly_baked_bread_loaves.jpg