Like, how does it get doughy and stretchy, even before kneading. The building blocks of bread and other baked goods at the start are near identical
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There are several factors
1) Time. Bread doughs typically take hours to make. Time allows the gluten “strands” to form thereby making it stretchy. For many cakes, flour is the LAST ingredient to add and after it is added, the batter is done.
2) Oil to water ratio. Gluten needs water to form strands. Oil coats the gluten and makes it difficult to form long strands. Bread starts with flour and water and with very little/no oil (or oil added after the dough is formed). Cakes start with butter (mostly oil) and sugar with very little/no additional water – sometimes just the water in the eggs and butter.
3) Mechanical action. Once flour is added to cake batter, it is stirred in and that usually completes the batter – typically stirred in “just enough” – maybe 30 seconds. Bread is kneaded to enhance the stretchiness.
4) Type of ingredient. Bread flour is different from cake or all purpose flour. It contains more gluten which enhances the stretchiness of the dough. It is usually possible to make bread out of all purpose flour, but it will be somewhat less stretchy.
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