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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Tiny CO2 bubbles produced from the fermentation process expand from the steam in them when they bake.
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