Do you need to sift flour before adding it to the dough?

Almost all recipes, especially those printed on the pages of old cookbooks, begin with the phrase "Sieve the flour." And even modern versions in the profiles of culinary bloggers on the Internet do not forget to mention this action.

Details

According to the authors of such cooking instructions, sifting saturates the dough with oxygen and also removes lumps, which are certainly present in every bag of flour.

However, this has long ceased to be true. A similar recommendation was indeed relevant, but earlier.

Back then, flour was delivered to store shelves in huge bags, the storage conditions of which were shrouded in secrecy, and packaged directly behind the counter.

In modern production, flour is necessarily sifted before being sent into a 1 or 2 kilogram paper bag, and very little time passes from the moment this operation is performed until the flour reaches your kitchen cabinet.

Thus, we can confidently conclude that such an action as sifting flour is completely unnecessary in today's realities.