SoylentNews

Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

A new method for predicting bread loaf volume without baking the bread promises to save researchers time and money [sciencedaily.com].

Julie Kindelspire, then a doctoral student at South Dakota State University, developed the mathematical model as part of a project to determine which wheat cultivars make the best bread. "It's a shortcut," Kindelspire said. "What once took 11 equations to calculate, now takes one."
...
Kindelspire discovered a correlation between the dough's ability to stretch and the stability of the walls of the gas-filled bubbles. "I found a relationship between dough extensibility and how it relates to strain hardening," she said. "A higher strain hardening index is better for loaf volume."

Nonsense! Baking the perfect loaf of bread is a simple matter of selecting the right virgin to sacrifice to the gods of the oven.

Original Submission