Strain hardening as an indicator of bread-making performance: A review with discussion

Since strain hardening has been proposed as an important quality indicator of dough with respect to bread-making performance, a large body of experimental support for this concept has been published. Nevertheless, some questions remain with respect to the use of the concept of strain hardening. This is the subject of this review. Discussion points will include the most relevant indicator of strain hardening in relation to bread-making performance, methods to determine strain hardening and the benefits and limitations of using strain hardening as a parameter that characterises the bread-making performance of bread dough.