What exactly about the chemistry/physics of bread dough causes it to develop internal crumbs as it bakes? Dough starts out as an airy but gel-like substance, so why is it that the interior of baked bread isn’t just either one big pocket of air or a much denser, uniform solid without any gaps? Why do we end up with irregular tiny chunks of congealed, semi-firm, relatively dry dough that sort of stack on top of one another, and what causes the crumbs to be finer or coarser?
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It is gluten development.
Gluten make the dough stretchy.
Some flour can develop more gluten than others.
The more you work (stretch and knead) the dough, the more you create gluten ( within the flour’s capability).
The more gluten, the bigger the holes in the baked dough will be. Because the pockets of Gas being created by the yeast can stretch like balloons.
If you are using low gluten flour and do not work it a lot, the finished dough is “grainy” or had tiny pockets of air because the flour didn’t stretch with the gas, the gas just spreads out.
Cake flour is low in gluten. And gives a grainy interior. You shouldn’t work cake dough very long because it will create gluten.
If you are making a French loaf, you want high gluten and you want to work it quite a bit. Then, you let the gas expand.
Then, you “punch” the dough down, which releases most of the gas but leaves tiny pockets.
Then you form that dough, usually using a technique that stretches the air pockets out and makes sure you don’t end up with a couple huge bubbles.
French dough looks more like strands versus cake looks like grains.
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