Wheat Dough

Wheat dough is prepared from whole wheat flour, refined flour or a combination of both, along with sugar, eggs, milk, yeast, sea salt, water etc. The dough may or may not be leavened with baking powder and yeast. Different types of wheat dough based dishes are made all over the world and the taste of the dough varies according to the ingredients that have been used to make it.

 

History of Wheat dough

Ground flour was one of the major food groups for the ancient man. Although the exact origin of  flour and dough is not known, researchers state that the ancient man might have ground down wheat and other wild grains to make soft flour. This could be then combined with water to make rough dough for porridge, gruels or flatbreads. Ancient methods of grinding wheat grains to make flour can be traced back to the Far East, Americas, Egypt and even Rome.

 

How to make Wheat dough?

Wheat dough is combined with water, milk, sugar and salt to make soft dough. Eggs, herbs, cheese, onions, peppers, spices and other ingredients may be added to the dough during the kneading process to make flavored wheat dough. Unleavened dough can be rolled out to make tortillas, chapathis etc. Leavening agents like baking powder and yeast may be added to the dough during the kneading process to make leavened dough. This dough is kneaded and allowed to prove before baking. Dough that has been leavened with yeast or baking powder can be used to make bread, muffins, cakes etc.

 

Popular Wheat Flour Dough Preparations

Over time, wheat flour was processed to produce different finer and softer varieties of wheat flour that could be kneaded into different kinds of superior dough. For example, whole wheat flour is used to make whole wheat dough, plain flour or white flour is used to make commercial bread dough or pizza dough, self-raising flour is already combined with a leavening agent like baking powder and is used to make self raising dough for biscuits, scones and muffins. Enriched flour is combined with other flours like buckwheat flour, spelt, almond flour etc to make specialty breads.

 

Nutritive Value of Wheat dough

A single serving of bread made from wheat dough contains 150 calories. The total fat content is 3.5g, the total protein content is 5g, the sodium content is 200mg, the total carbohydrate content is 24g, and the total fat content is 3g, while the sugar content is 5g. Whole wheat is full of essential vitamins and minerals and is ideal for consumption.