Cereal Chem. 85(3):403-408Characterization of the rheological properties of wheat flour dough during mixing and baking without modifying its structure or mechanical properties is not easy. In this work, the effect of dough setting preorientation and strain orientation during characterization are assessed for differently structured wheat flour doughs (various water contents and addition of glucose oxydase). Rheological properties were measured in dynamic shear as rotational (CSL 2 100 fitted with a cone-plate geometry) or radial (CP20 fitted with a plate-plate geometry) small deformation mode and in lubricated squeezing flow and relaxation called large deformation mode. In comparison with radial shearing, rotational shearing induces a much larger preorientation of the network and thus a strainhardening phenomenon that affects the rheological measurements (storage modulus is overestimated) but relaxes, at least partially, during a rest period. Consequently, a longer period of time has to be allotted (allowing stress relaxation) before starting measurements. Plate-plate geometry induces less preorientation and allows measurement a few minutes after setting. However, it has less discrimination of the differently structured dough than the cone-plate geometry used in rotational mode. Results which partially agree with those of the CP20 are obtained using the lubricated squeezing flow followed by stress relaxation.Bread dough formulas contain mainly flour, water, salt, and yeast. In handmade products, industrial manufacturing of dough produces a high stress level (for example, during high speed rate mixing or mechanical shaping) that can adulterate bread quality. It appears that it is difficult to directly access dough samples during kneading, proofing, shaping, and baking without disturbing the structure of the material. However, rheological tests developed using either small or large strain levels give information that can be related to the structural characteristics of dough.Rheological testing of dough in dynamic mode in which small shear strain is applied (typically <1%) is commonly used and performed in nondestructive conditions. However, small shear strain is not appropriate for breadmaking where deformations are essentially elongated in nature, with a high strain level. That is why, in most cases, no clear relationship has been found between parameters measured using dynamic oscillations and baking performance of dough (Dobraszczyck and Morgensen 2003). Other tests using large strains may be more useful to this end, particularly biaxial extension as it occurs during gas cell expansion.The two methods mainly used to characterize the rheological behavior of dough using biaxial extensional deformation are 1) bubble inflation test (Launay and