Why don't youtiao expand

Fried dough sticks are a very common food in our daily life. The fried dough sticks are particularly fluffy and crispy, and have an extremely crispy taste when eaten. Nowadays, many people eat fried dough sticks for breakfast. Eating a crispy fried dough stick in the morning makes you feel full of energy for the whole day. Some people also like to make their own fried dough sticks, but when they make them themselves, they will find that they are not as puffy as those sold, because there are some little tricks in making fried dough sticks.

Why don't youtiao expand?

The dough is not fermented enough or the fermentation temperature is too low.

First, let's take a look at the production process of fried dough sticks: the first step is to make the dough leavened, that is, use fresh yeast or old dough (yeast dough) and flour together with water to knead it. After the flour is fermented to a certain degree, add appropriate amount of pure alkali, salt and alum to knead it, and then cut it into strips 1 cm thick and about 10 cm long. Stack every two strips up and down, press them in the middle with a narrow wooden stick, rotate them and stretch them into a hot oil pan to fry them, so that they expand into a loose, crisp, yellow and fragrant fried dough stick.

The principle of dough stick expansion

The reason why fried dough sticks can expand is that the swelling agent added to the dough will undergo a chemical reaction during the frying process, instantly releasing a large amount of carbon dioxide and ammonia, causing the dough to expand in just a few seconds and finally take shape. Although the smell of ammonia may make people uncomfortable, since ammonia is soluble in water, the ammonia content in fried dough sticks is relatively small.

When gas is generated, the expansion of the dough depends on the elasticity and ductility of the gluten. Gluten is the water-insoluble protein in flour. Making fried dough sticks particularly requires flour with strong ductility, because the dough sticks need to be stretched before being put into the pan to increase the heating area.

When the dough is put into the pan, its surface will be fried in hot oil within a few seconds and quickly fixed into shape, which limits its ability to expand, making the single fried dough stick not crispy and not good-looking in shape. Therefore, when making fried dough sticks, you should overlap two pieces of dough and press them in the middle to make them stick together. When the dough sticks expand, the bonding parts are thicker and therefore transfer heat more slowly. Even if the surface is fried, the bonding parts are still soft. At the same time, the leavening agent is still releasing gas, so the dough can continue to expand, making the whole dough stick more and more fluffy.

How to make fried dough sticks soft and fluffy

1. Weigh 1% salt and 2.2% alum and dissolve them in about 60% warm water;

2. Weigh appropriate amount of fried dough sticks powder;

3. Weigh 2.5% baking soda in warm water and mix with fried dough stick powder;

4. Fold in half and ferment until the surface is smooth;

5. Let it stand for 1 hour and then try again;

6. After about 2-4 hours, turn the fermentation into a rectangle of 18cm in length and 8cm in width, and divide it into 12 equal embryonic strips;

7. Overlap the two strips, press the lines, stretch them, and put them into the pot;

8. Fry the strips of dough while putting them into the pan until golden brown.