What Is Gluten? Things You Need To Know About It

Have you ever wondered what’s the difference between bread, cakes and cookies? They all use similar ingredients and what differentiates them from one another. Gluten is the major player behind it. It provides bread with a chewy and tough texture. For cakes or cookies, gluten is avoided to achieve soft and tender crumble results.

What is gluten and how does it work?

Gluten is composed of gliadin and glutenin, two types of protein found in many grains. When gliadin and glutenin come into contact with water, they bind together and form gluten strands. Once water is introduced into flour, it activates enzymes in the flour, mainly protease and amylase. Amylase breaks down complex carbohydrates into simple sugar, providing food for wild yeast while protease breaks down proteins. Protease cuts gluten strands into smaller pieces and those pieces bind again and with time (during bulk ferment), it becomes stronger and a more complex network.

Gluten is formed by hydrating flour with water. Mixing accelerates the speed of gluten development. Bakers also perform several foldings throughout the bulk ferment stage to enhance gluten strength. (check another way to build your dough’s strength to learn different folding techniques)

As gluten develops, the dough becomes elastic (ability to stretch) and extensible (ability to hold its shape). Both properties assist the dough in holding gases (released by yeast activities during fermentation) and vapers (during baking) without tearing, which contributes to good oven spring (rise in oven), lightness and chewiness in the final baked goods. Without a strong gluten network, you may get a flatter and denser loaf.

How to examine gluten development?

Performing a windowpane test is a quick and simple way to examine gluten development. By stretching a small portion of dough in your hands. A well-developed dough could be stretched so thin without tearing.

Other factors impact gluten development

– types of flour

The flour you choose has a significant effect on how strong the gluten network can be. For bread-making purposes, aim for white flour with a protein content of 11% – 13%. The higher the protein it contains, the stronger the gluten network can be.

Wholewheat flour contains germ and bran. Even though they are small, those small pieces have sharp edges that would cut gluten strands and interfere with gluten development. Some ancient wheat varieties (e.g. spelt, emmer and einkorn) have weaker gluten-forming properties. That’s why they are often mixed with other flour to achieve proper gluten strength.

Not all flour can develop gluten. For example rye flour. It only contains gliadin and without glutenin, the gluten can’t be formed and thus rye bread is usually denser and crumblier. As for rice or corn flour, there are neither gliadin nor glutenin exists in them so there won’t be any gluten at all.

• tip: can’t get enough gluten strength for your bread? Check my secret weapon for sourdough baking.

– salt

Salt not only provides flavor but also helps strengthen gluten structure. Usually 2% salt is added to the dough. Excessive salt will kill microorganisms (yeast and bacteria).

– fat

Fat, like butter and oil, would coat the gluten strands and prevent them from sticking back to each other. That’s why when making enriched dough, butter is added after gluten develops and enriched dough is normally softer than lean dough.

– water content

The quantity of water in the dough plays a vital role in gluten development. Without enough water, the flour won’t be fully hydrated and the gluten won’t develop properly. With too much water, you would get a batter rather than a dough. The gluten may form but it won’t have enough strength.

• tip: making higher hydration dough? apply bassinage technique (find out more here: introduction to bassinage )

– mixing method

Hand-mixed dough is not as efficient in hydrating flour as the dough mixed by machine. However, there are different techniques that helps with this issue. For instance, performing autolyse and bassinage in your sourdough-making process.

• check these posts to learn more: introduction to bassinage, what is autolyse

Is gluten the stronger the better?

It depends on what texture you are looking for in the final baked goods.

For bread, too strong gluten results in tough and chewy bread. Because of an excessively strong gluten network, the dough doesn’t stretch easily, leading to overly dense final products. With too little gluten, the dough won’t be able to hold the shape, let alone have an oven spring (rise in oven) during baking.

When making cakes, gluten is avoided to achieve a soft and tender texture. That’s why recipes always use the term “fold” instead of “mix” when it comes to the step of adding flour to the mixture. By folding flour into the mixture, it requires minimum movement (agitation) of flour and mixture to prevent gluten development. The same principle applies to shortbread. As little gluten development as possible. Otherwise, the shortbread is not “short” (crumbly) anymore.

How to choose flour that suits my needs?

When choosing flour, check the protein content in the package. It indicates the purpose of flour. (not appliable to rye flour or ancient grain flour owing to the different properties these flour have)

For bread-making, white bread flour (or baker’s flour) with a protein content of 12% and higher generally delivers good results, providing gluten is well-developed during the process. Some people use all-purpose flour (plain flour, 10-11% protein) or mix flour with it to make bread. It gives a softer and less chewy texture but the dough is still easy to handle.

Cake flour (10% protein) is not suitable for bread making due to the low gluten-forming protein presented in the flour.

As for wholewheat flour (wholemeal flour), although it may contain higher protein, the small pieces of bran and germ would affect gluten development. As a result of it, bread made with wholemeal flour is denser.