Cereal Chem 55:392 - 401.  |  VIEW ARTICLE
Breadmaking Studied by Light and Transmission Electron Microscopy.

D. B. Bechtel, Y. Pomeranz, and A. de Francisco. Copyright 1978 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

The structure of a water-flour dough, a fermented dough containing all bread ingredients (complete dough), and baked bread was examined by light and transmission electron microscopy. Protein strands provided a matrix network in a mixed dough; matrix formation required adequate mixing. Excessive mixing destroyed the matrix. The effect of overmixing and under mixing depended on mixing requirements and mixing tolerance of the flour. Fermentation of a complete dough produced gas vacuoles. After oven spring, protein strands were thin and had small vacuoles. Starch granules in the bottom center of a loaf varied widely in degree of gelatinization after oven spring; starch started to gelatinized from the interior of the granule and appeared fibrous. In the baked bread, most of the starch was gelatinized into fibrous strands interwoven with thin protein strands.