in the batter simply ties up the moisture and there is not enough left for the yeast. You should not

add more than 2 tablespoons sugar for every cup of flour in the dough. An additional problem of too

much sugar is that it interferes with developing gluten. Sugar combines with the gluten-forming

proteins so gluten cannot fully develop.

Bakers add extra yeast for high-sugar breads to compensate for their slow activities, they

knead the dough longer to develop as much of gluten as possible and they use the highest protein

flour they can get. Another way to get around the high-sugar problem is to keep the dough just

barely sweet and add sweet fillings and toppings once the dough is fully proofed.

Although flour in the bread dough does not contain sugar, it has plenty of starch and our

smart yeast knows how to convert starch into sugar that it proceeds to gobble up with enormous

appetite. Fortunately for them, there is an enzyme in flour (alpha amylase) that, on command from

the yeast, converts starch into simple sugars. These enzymes attack starch granules damaged by the

milling process. Commercial bakers add barley malt to bread dough as it has a high amount of the

enzyme that accelerates this conversion. When you read the list of ingredients on your bread

wrapping, malt, malted flour or barley malt is likely to be one of them. The enzyme in them is the

reason.

In the feeding process yeast produces the gas carbon dioxide which remains in the dough

as bubbles. In the oven heat the dough solidifies, and the gas bubbles become the holes in the

bread. Another reason for yeast is flavor—yeast gives the unmistakable, marvelous yeasty taste

to breads.

Flour

Flour contains five basic organic building blocks: proteins, starch, sugar, oil and enzymes.

Sugar and starch are the yeast's basic foods. Oil is in the wheat germ providing energy for the

sprouting wheat. The wheat germ remains in whole wheat flour but the milling process removes it

to make white flour which is free of oil. Enzymes are very minor constituents of flour.

There are many proteins in flour that are its main ingredients. Only two are important to

develop the bread structure—gliadin and glutenin. These two proteins become gluten when you add

water, but that is not enough for developing bread dough. In order to form a proper structural

framework that becomes bread, gluten must be developed by kneading. Kneading lengthens the

gluten molecules so they can produce a firm, continuous structure. Gluten then becomes a rubbery,

elastic chemical that forms a network in the dough.

TASTINGS How to make pure gluten

Even to experienced bread bakers gluten has the aura of a mysterious substance

that forms like magic in kneaded bread dough. But gluten is a physical substance,

nothing mystical. You can make gluten, see what it looks like and feel it in your

hand. Prepare and knead a bread dough using bread flour until it is soft and

supple, indicating that you have fully developed the gluten. Now continue

manipulating the dough under running water. The water washes the starch out of

the dough, and when it runs clear and all the starch is down the drain, you have

pure gluten in your hand.

Bakers know that the rougher they are with the dough, the faster and better the gluten

develops. What kneading does is unfold and align the randomly oriented and twisted gluten

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