Kneading dough "develops the gluten," which are the sticky strands that trap and hold the bubbles of carbon dioxide that the yeast exhales as it grows.  Kneading your bread will stretch out the protein strands, as well as continuing to mix everything together to get the best exposure to all the chemical processes happening inside the loaf.

However, you don't actually have to knead your bread in order for this to happen.  "No-knead bread" became fantastically popular after Mark Bittman (one of my favorite food bloggers) talked about it in a New York Times article.  The exact same thing happens, on a molecular level, if you just let the dough sit there longer.  

When I began taking baby steps away from the bread machine, I started with no-knead and minimally kneaded breads.  These are pretty simple, and take far less work than "regular" bread.  However, they don't have the same firm physical structure as a kneaded loaf will.  

Eventually I started getting tired of breads that would puddle out on a cookie sheet if given half a chance.  In order to get anything remotely loaf-shaped, you have to bake no-knead bread in a dutch oven, a casserole dish, or a loaf pan.  

One day I decided that I wanted to make "real" bread, a batard or boule, an actual handmade loaf like you would buy at the bakery.  And if that's what I wanted, then I would have to knead it!  But how?

The first tutorial I found suggested doing this funny little maneuver with a rubber spatula.  You scoop the spatula along the edge of the bold and fold the dough up over its top.  This works really well with a very wet mixture, although I'm not sure if it should qualify as "kneading."  I tried it, but I couldn't tell any difference.

The next kneading tutorial I found was what I'll call "traditional kneading."  Somewhere I have this model in my head, probably from Looney Tunes cartoons or something.  You grind your wrists into the dough and shove it out away from you, then fold it over itself.  Give it a quarter turn and do it again.  Here's a video of the hypnotic process.

The down side to "traditional kneading" is that it's very physically demanding.  The first time I tried it, I was able to get about four kneads in before my wrists started complaining mightily.  You're putting the entire weight of your upper body on your forearms and wrists, and this can be really hard if you're not very strong (like me) or if you suffer from a condition like carpal tunnel syndrome.

Yesterday a friend sent me a link to the "stretch and fold" technique on Sourdough Home.  I'm excited by this, because it seems to have everything I want (good structural development; minimal time involvement) and none of what I don't (huge physical effort).  It's difficult to explain, but you can watch the videos here on the Stretch And Fold page.  Basically you use a spatula to tease out the bread to all four sides, then fold it over itself.  I am definitely trying this next!

(Just be sure to avoid doing anything shown in the video How Not To Make Bread.)

PROTIP: Bread works well as the outer layer of a sandwich. Better than, say, fried chicken breasts.

Creative Commons-licensed image courtesy of Flickr user ashe-villain