Windowpane Test Fail

Dealing with failed seals.

Windowpane test fail. It may help to give your dough a minute to rest before testing if you ve just finished a lot of kneading the gluten may already be stretched out as far as it ll go. We re not talking plastic wrap thin here just see if your dough holds together or tears easily as you stretch it out. Let it sit for a minute or two on the counter before testing. I will knead for 20 40 mins total with rests in between and i still can t get the pane test to pass.

Window pane test always fails. If you don t knead your bread dough enough your bread would lack an airy light texture. I tried adding the vital wheat gluten and some too much water and now i m letting the all white flour sticky dough rise. I am kind new to bread baking and have been trying to get into it for a while.

4 comments mwb march 19 2011 thanks. I have been under the. While a window can certainly fail and not have any moisture between the two panes it is more common to see moisture between the two panes. An autolyse where you lightly mix flour and water and just let it sit there.

I can t get the dough to smooth out while kneading. This fogginess or hazing may come and go depending on weather conditions. The windowpane test is really useful when making bread. I am new to baking and though my breads are soft and delicious my doughs never pass the windowpane test.

Here s what you do first cut off a small piece of the dough about the size of a golf ball. Hand kneaded for almost an hour once. With homemade bread it s important to know when the dough is ready to go and the window pane test is. Here are the reasons why your dough doesn t pass the windowpane test.

Kneading and or mixing speed up the process but it s not necessary. If it doesn t get to this point it shouldn t mean that your bread is going to be a fail. My bagel dough fails the windowpane test though i ve added 1 3 more bread flour than the recipe calls for shall i add more. The windowpane test is just a way to test whether or not you ve achieved sufficent gluten development although some would argue that it s an indicator of too much gluten development.

The windowpane test is one of the best ways to tell if you ve sufficiently kneaded your bread dough though it can sound like a pretty bizarre instruction when you come across it in a recipe. You may be doing the test itself wrong. The idea is just to see if you can stretch your dough enough to create a translucent membrane. You don t want either so the windowpane test is.

It is most likely to occur when indoor and outdoor temperatures are very different and may vanish as temperatures change or humidity levels change. Over kneaded dough gives you bread that breaks teeth. I religiously follow each recipes instructions re kneading but it can never be stretched into a thin shiny film it can be stretched but not as much as how elastic doughs are shown in baking books. Gluten begins to develop as soon as water and flour are mixed.