Methods of Mixing the Bread Ingredients

In this guide, you will learn three ways of making bread and mixing bread ingredients. These are the straight dough method, the sponge and dough method and the no-time dough method.

Straight Dough Method

Many commercial bakeries employ this method since it is the easiest to do. In this method, all ingredients are mixed together simultaneously with a single fermentation period. This method is faster, involves less labor coast and requires less space for fermentation.

Sponge and Dough Method

This process has two mixing stages and fermentation periods. The first stage is the sponge stage where the baker mixes 80% of the flour, 100% of the yeast and 55% of the water. The resulting dough is fermented for 30 minutes to one hour. After fermentation the mass is returned to the mixer and the following ingredients are added: 20% of the flour, 45% of the water and all other ingredients such as sugar, shortening, salt and powdered milk. After thorough mixing, the dough is fermented again – called the dough stage. Breads made with this method are lighter in weight and white in color.

No-Time Dough Method

This method has no fermentation stage. After mixing the ingredients, the dough is directly placed in the oven where fermentation process takes place. While this method is faster than the two methods, the resulting bread is harder, drier and fewer.

Basic Steps in Bread Making

Making high quality bread demands the use of high-quality ingredients, a balanced formula and close supervision in every stage of the production process. The basic steps of bread making are:

1. Weighing the ingredients. Any excess or lack in any of the ingredients will affect the bread being made.

2. Mixing the ingredients for the dough. Even mixing the ingredients results in good quality gluten, which in turn results in fine bread. The stages of mixing ingredients to produce the dough are:

• a. Pick-up stage – The wet and dry ingredients are mixed in this stage
• b. Preliminary development – The dough being mixed is starting to become smooth at this stage.
• c. Clean-up stage – The ingredients bond together and the resulting dough is elastic or stretched. The sides of the mixing bowl start to become clean.
• d. Final development – The dough is now very smooth and easy to stretch. The sides of the mixing bowl is clean and the mass clings to the dough hook. At his stage, the dough is ready for the fermentation stage.

3. Allowing the dough to rest and rise. After the mixing stage, the next step is allowing the dough to rest and rise. At this stage, the volume of the dough increases, the result of the carbon dioxide released by the yeast trapped in the gluten. The gluten is conditioned and softened, so the dough will be easy to knead. If the fermentation is correctly done, the resulting bread will have a high volume, soft and fine-grained, and taste delicious as well.

4. Make-up operation. This stage has the following steps:

• a. Scaling – refers to the cutting of the dough into desired weight as a means of avoiding wastage. Scaling uses the dough cutter and weighing scale.
• b. Rounding – the pieces of the cut dough have irregular shapes; some fermentation gases may have escaped. By rounding, the edges of the cut dough become smooth. It is rolled on the bench and applied with a little amount of oil.
• c. Intermediate proofing - the dough is allowed to rest again so it can be easily molded to desired shapes. This usually lasts for 15-20 minutes.
• d. Molding - involves the forming or molding of the dough according to the design or type of bread to be made.
• e. Panning - the molded pieces of dough are transferred to the cooking containers like loaf pans, sheet and muffin pans. These containers are greased with oil or margarine so the dough will not stick to the pan while being baked. Dough should be allowed to rest before these containers are placed in the oven.

5. Final proofing. This pieces of molded dough are placed and aired in the proofer so the bread will be fine-grained and achieve the right size. This lasts for 45-60 minutes.

6. Baking. The molded dough is baked at 375°F - 400°F for 15-35 minutes, depending on the size of the bread being prepared.