I find that the time spent fermenting doesn't have any effect on the flavour at all. As all the by-products, yeast, CO2 and alcohol are the same I don't really see how they could have any effect on the taste either. However it does have an effect on the texture and I find the dough made in the machine is far better than any I have seen made by hand. Just my experience YMMV.
I used to make bread by hand before I had a bread machine. I found that if you skimped on the kneeding, you got a loaf with larger bubbles in it, and conversely, kneeding more gives you a loaf with finer texture and smaller bubbles. I saw an open university program on the science behind bread making many years ago and it said this was because you are folding the dough more which results in the finer texture between many smaller bubbles.
In an attempt to make a very fine textured loaf in a bread machine, I fooled it into doing the kneeding phase twice, but it didn't make any difference. The bread machine is
100% consistent, and extra kneeding doesn't seem to have the same effect it does by hand. Maybe it already kneeds to some maximal effect, past which there's no further change. Fortunately, what it delivers is what I want.
was Mr Kenneth Wood, born in Lewisham and brought up at Chelsfield, Kent. He patented the Kenwood Chef in 1950, but had set up his radio and TV sales and repair company Dickson and Wood in 1936.
My understanding is that it is more related to the stretching of the gluten within the dough: kneading is essentially a stretching process rather than a mixing process. Hence the importance of using strong (high protein) flour and kneading it to make an extended network of protein chains through the dough.
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