Tell me, what do you do when you knead dough, practically of any kind? I take a sieve and sift the flour. I remember from childhood that all the recipes say: sift the flour!
It is believed that sifting enriches the flour with oxygen, makes it fluffier and softer, making the dough better - both in appearance and in taste. I remember when I experimented with baking, and I did not succeed in biscuits (I still have them succeed once, and I am ready to believe in the otherworldly reasons for this phenomenon), I was always sternly asked:
- Did you sift the flour?
Yes sifted, sifted!
The apotheosis was the proposal of one lady from the culinary forum:
-Maybe it’s bad? Sift twice!
Hmm... I thought before that the saturation of flour with oxygen is more likely a culinary myth. Flour is a free-flowing product; it will not keep gas between its particles when we mix it with the liquid phase. All the oxygen... will be gone. And also - where does the oxygen come from? There is air around us, and the movements of the sieve do not extract oxygen from the air, except that an unclean force again enters the matter (the same one, because of which biscuits do not periodically rise).
In general, if you follow the logic, and at the same time - the principles of physics and chemistry, to give the test airiness, ingredients are used that, during chemical reactions with other ingredients themselves release gas, or those that are able to hold it for a long time... Then the dough will be porous and, as we call it, "Air"
And flour has nothing to do with it!
True, it is difficult to force yourself not to sift flour. This is already laid down at the subconscious level, since you knead the dough, sift the flour.
By the way, about where the argument was invented that flour should be sieved for the tenderness of the product. At the end of the 19th century (about 1870), a new confectionery product appeared in the United States - angelic biscuit (otherwise - airy). It is believed that this is the most delicate sponge cake possible (although I do not agree with this). So, when kneading the dough, flour should not be added in a heap at once, but carefully. This was most conveniently done with a sieve.
And one of the cunning pastry chefs decided to add "additional value" to the product in this way - letting go of the myth that sifting makes a biscuit softer, that sifting is just a trick for the tenderness of an angelic biscuit, well, and therefore it costs more - because labor has been invested in it more.
Shl, In general, flour was initially sifted for that. to remove all unnecessary from it, well, break the lumps from the old one.