kneading

right|thumb|Hand kneading dough for bread thumb|How-to knead dough. In cooking (and more specifically baking), kneading is a process in the making of bread dough, used to mix the ingredients and add strength and stiffness to the final product. It shortens baking times by forming gluten structural protein complexes more quickly than would occur without kneading and incorporates air into the dough.

Kneading's importance lies in the mixing of flour with water; when these two ingredients are combined and kneaded, the gliadin and glutenin proteins in the flour expand and form strands of gluten, which gives bread its texture. (To aid gluten production, many recipes use bread flour, which is higher in protein than all-purpose flour.) The kneading process warms and stretches these gluten strands, eventually creating a springy and elastic dough.