Dough

Dough is a thick, malleable, sometimes elastic paste made from

grains or from leguminous or chestnut crops. Dough is typically
made by mixing flour with a small amount of water or other liquid
and sometimes includes yeast or other leavening agents, as well as
ingredients such as fats or flavorings.

Making and shaping dough begins the preparation of a wide variety

of foodstuffs, particularly breads and bread-based items, but also
including biscuits, cakes, cookies, dumplings, flatbreads, noodles,
pasta, pastry, pizza, piecrusts, and similar items. Dough can be
made from a wide variety of flour, commonly wheat and rye but
also maize, rice, legumes, almonds, and other cereals or crops.

Types of dough Freshly mixed dough in the bowl of a

stand mixer

Doughs vary widely depending on ingredients, the desired end

product, the leavening agent (particularly whether the dough is
based on yeast or not), how the dough is mixed (whether quickly
mixed or kneaded and left to rise), and cooking or baking
technique. There is no formal definition of what makes dough,
though most doughs have viscoelastic properties.[1]

There are several general classes of dough:

Yeast-leavened or fermented doughs, made from cereal

grains or ground legumes mixed with water and yeast,
A statue of a servant kneading
are used all over the world to make various types of
dough, from Egypt, Old Kingdom, 5th
bread including bread rolls, loaves and flatbread. The
addition of salt, oil or other fats, sugar or honey and Dynasty, c. 2494–2345 BCE
sometimes milk or eggs will produce bread products of
varying texture. Commercial bread dough may also
include dough conditioners, which help make the dough and the final product more
consistent.

Doughs with higher fat content that contain less water develop less gluten and are therefore
generally less elastic than bread doughs. They tend to become tough when they are
kneaded[2] These doughs are often called "short" by bakers. Examples include many cookie
and pie doughs such as shortcrust pastry.[1]

Quick breads use leavening agents other than yeast (such as baking powder or baking
soda), and include most cookies, cakes, biscuits, and more. These may be based on a batter
or a dough.

Laminated dough such as mille-feuille and puff pastry where a prepared flour dough is
folded over fat (usually butter) and rolled out. The folding and rolling process can be
repeated to create very thin layers of dough and butter to create the puff pastry. There are
many different techniques to create laminated doughs and some like paratha are relatively
simple while others like mille-feuille are more laborious.[3] Most laminated doughs are
 leavened only by the steam created by the folding
process. Danish pastry and croissant are sometimes
considered a separate class of dough because they are
made from laminated dough that is leavened with
yeast.[4]
Choux pastry is a steam-leavened dough used for some
types of sweet pastries, notably cream puffs, eclairs,
tulumba and churros. Unlike most other pastry doughs,
the ingredients for the dough are cooked on the stovetop
before the dough is baked until achieving the A laminated dough prepared to make
consistency of a thick paste. Choux means cabbage in a flaky South Asian flatbread known
French. It's thought that the name comes from the shape as paratha
of the cream puffs made with choux paste.[4]

Some dumpling and pasta doughs are similar enough that experts have difficulty
distinguishing them, although dumpling is a very general category that overlaps with others
like yeasted breads and batter biscuits. Varying the ratio of liquid and flour in a basic pasta
dough may create a softer dough like that used for the German soup noodle spaetzle.[5]
Eggs are a very common addition to make the dough moist and easier to roll out. The dough
can be filled or shaped various ways and boiled, baked, steamed or fried.[6][7]
Gluten free doughs like rice noodles and Japanese harusame noodles depend on the
gelatinzation of starch for structure.[8]

Unleavened bread is made not only from wheat but in many cultures has been made from
locally available starchy ingredients like corn, oatcakes and casabe de yuca since the
earliest times.[9][10]

Sometimes meringue is considered a dough.[4] The English recipe for "Satan Biscuit" dates to 1677, and
earlier recipes are known by different names. Some included flour like a 1604 recipe for "white bisket
bread".[11]

Techniques
Techniques used in dough production depend on the type of dough and final product.[12]

For yeast-based and sponge (such as sourdough) breads, a common production technique is the dough is
mixed, kneaded, and then left to rise. Many bread doughs call for a second stage, where the dough is
kneaded again, shaped into the final form, and left to rise a final time (or proofed) before baking.[13]
Kneading is the process of working a dough to produce a smooth, elastic dough by developing gluten.[13]
This process is both temperature and time-dependent; temperatures that are either too hot or too cold will
cause the yeast to not develop, and rising times that are either too short or too long will affect the final
product.

Pasta is typically made from a dry dough that is kneaded and shaped, either through extrusion, rolling out in
a pasta machine, or stretched or shaped by hand (as for gnocchi or dumplings). Pasta may be cooked
directly after production (so-called "fresh pasta") or dried, which renders it shelf-stable.

Doughs for biscuits and many flatbreads which are not leavened with yeast are typically mixed but not
kneaded or left to rise; these doughs are shaped and cooked directly after mixing.
While breads and other products made from doughs are often baked, some types of dough-based foods are
cooked over direct heat, such as tortillas, which are cooked directly on a griddle. Fried dough foods are also
common in many cultures.

Pancakes, waffles, some kinds of bar cookies such as brownies, and many cakes and quick breads
(including muffins and the like) are often made with a semi-liquid batter of flour and liquid that is poured
into the final shape, rather than a solid dough. Unlike bread dough, these batters are not stabilized by the
formation of a gluten network.[14]

Dough being kneaded Yeast bread dough after

kneading, before rising

Yeast bread dough after rising Dough being cut into noodles
(proofing), for 40 minutes with a pasta machine

See also
Food portal

Baking
Bread trough
Dough blender
 Dough scraper
Doughboy (disambiguation)
Farinograph – a tool that measures specific properties of flour
List of breads
List of fried dough foods
List of pasta
List of pastries
Parchment paper
Proofing (baking technique)
Roller docker
Royal icing
Straight dough
Stuffing

References
1. Leon Levine; Ed Boehmer (1997). "Chapter 12, Dough Processing Systems". Handbook of
Food Engineering Process. doi:10.1201/9781420049077.ch12 (https://doi.org/10.1201%2F9
781420049077.ch12).
2. "This is how to make perfect shortcrust pastry" (https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/uk/food/
food-reviews/a553129/how-to-make-shortcrust-pastry/). Good Housekeeping.
3. Goldstein Darra. 2015. The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
4. Alan Davidson. National & Regional Styles of Cookery: Proceedings: Oxford Symposium.
1981.
5. Heinzelmann Ursula. 2008. Food Culture in Germany. Westport Conn: Greenwood Press.
6. Culinary Institute of America. 2011. The Professional Chef. 9th ed. Hoboken N.J: John Wiley
& Sons.
7. Thaker Aruna and Arlene Barton. 2012. Multicultural Handbook of Food Nutrition and
Dietetics. Chichester West Sussex UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
8. McGee Harold. 2004. On Food and Cooking : The Science and Lore of the Kitchen
Completely rev. and updated ed. New York: Scribner.
9. Tylor, Edward Burnett (1881). Anthropology: an introduction to the study of man and
civilization (https://archive.org/details/anthropologyintr00tylouoft).
10. Cooking through History: A Worldwide Encyclopedia of Food with Menus and Recipes.
2020. ABC-CLIO.
11. ​Day Ivan. 2009. Cooking in Europe 1650-1850. Westport Conn: Greenwood Press.
12. Rathod, Anurag (2023-02-09). "From Antiquated to Advanced: The History of Pizza Dough
Rollers" (https://www.darbaar.com/history-of-pizza-dough-rollers/). Darbaar.com. Retrieved
2023-02-23.
13. Irma S. Rombauer; Marion Rombauer Becker; Ethan Becker (1997). Joy of Cooking.
Scribner. pp. 738–742. ISBN 0684818701.
14. Stanley P. Cauvain. (2012) Chapter 12: Baking. in Food Processing Handbook. 2 ed. Wiley.
p. 422 ISBN 9783527324682. This reference is specifically about cake batter.

Further reading
 Cuvain, Stanley; Linda S. Young (2007). Technology of Breadmaking (2 ed.). Springer.
doi:10.1007/0-387-38565-7 (https://doi.org/10.1007%2F0-387-38565-7).
ISBN 9780387385655.—covers commercial dough production
DiMuzio, Daniel (2009). Bread Baking: An Artisan's Perspective. Wiley. ISBN 978-
0470138823.—covers home and commercial baking and dough techniques
Hamelman, Jeffrey (2004). Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes. Wiley.
ISBN 978-0471168577.—covers home and commercial baking and dough techniques

External links
Media related to Dough at Wikimedia Commons
The dictionary definition of dough at Wiktionary

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dough&oldid=1148657349"