Wheat flour constituents: how they impact bread quality, and how to impact their functionality

The vast majority of bread is traditionally produced from wheat flour. Apart from its major constituent starch, wheat flour also contains many other types of substances of which the gluten, the non-starch polysaccharides as well as the lipids are the most important in terms of their impact on the processability of the raw material and in terms of the quality of the final products. We here provide the basics on the processability and quality determining wheat flour constituents and present common concepts on their fate during the breadmaking process as well as on approaches targeted to influence their functionality.