Dough – Do you need to break up a large dough ball into smaller balls for optimal proving

Kneading does two things. First it mixes all the ingredients uniformly. You have to do this no matter what, but you only really have to do it enough to mix the ingredients.

If you keep kneading beyond the mixing stage, you are applying energy (which equals heat) to the yeast which makes it ferment, generating the tiny bubbles which make bread fluffy.

The yeast will ferment on its own, but kneading just accelerates that process.

Historically, dough was proved (left in a hot humid place) for about 18 hours allowing it to rise slowly in order to make bread.

In 1961 a process was developed in England called the Chorleywood Process. Essentially you work the heck out of the dough with high-speed mixers. The extra few minutes of high energy mixing applies heat to the yeast, which dramatically reduces the fermentation period required, allowing you to make bread much more quickly... at factory-type speeds. Factories can make bread in a couple of hours instead of having to prepare dough one day and bake it the next.

Doughs are docked to keep them from blowing up with steam while they bake.

Thus- you only do it in applications that you don't want blown up- like blind pie crusts. Puff pastry applications, for example, you usually do want to blow up so you will get a lot of light layers.

If you are baking a pastry with a filling then the filling will keep this from happening. If you are baking blind, even with pie weights, you should dock because the weights might not weight evenly and you might still get a bubble.