How do I know when I am done kneading?

Kneading is very important for yeast breads. I knead my bread usually somewhere between 8 and 12 minutes. Kneading helps develop the gluten, which I will discuss in detail in a future post. Developing the gluten helps your bread to rise, so this is VERY important in a yeast bread! How do you know when you are done? Your bread should be very elastic. If you try to stretch your bread and it breaks, like the first picture, keep kneading. If you stretch it and it stretches very thin, like the second picture, you are done!