Bread

C

Other Ingredients

In addition to different flours, other ingredients may be added to bread to impart different flavors and textures. Eggs, milk, sugar, and fats and oils, also called shortening, can be added to bread dough to create a tender, richer bread with a finer consistency . Most breads incorporate one or more of these ingredients. Raisins, almonds, sesame seeds, and poppy seeds boost protein content as well as enhance flavor and are popular additions to bread. Herbs and spices, such as cumin or cinnamon, add a variety of subtle flavors.

III

How Bread is Made

Making yeast breads involves five basic steps: mixing, kneading, and rising the dough, then shaping and baking the bread. Flour is mixed with yeast, liquid ingredients—usually milk or water—and any additional ingredients such as salt, sugar, and shortening to form dough. After the dough becomes too thick to stir, it is kneaded by repeatedly pressing, folding, and turning it to develop and stretch the gluten, which helps the bread rise.

The kneaded dough is allowed to ferment until it rises to double its original size. It is then punched down and kneaded again briefly to break up large air pockets into smaller ones and to remix the dough slightly, enabling the yeast to come into contact with any pockets of unmetabolized sugars, and then allowed to rise again. Different types of bread dough may be allowed to rise several times, contributing to the texture and volume of the bread. Before the final rising, the dough is shaped into one of many traditional shapes, for example a loaf or a roll. After the final rising, the bread is baked.

Cooking methods may contribute to the final character of the bread. Heating the dough to temperatures above 60° C (140° F) kills the yeast; higher temperatures change the chemical structure of the dough. Most bread is cooked by baking but some breads, such as Chinese dumplings, are steamed, and others, such as Native American fry breads, are fried in oil.

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Until the 20th century, most bread was baked in the home to meet the needs of individual families. Although bread is still made using traditional methods in many parts of the world, large commercial automated bakeries now operate 24 hours a day in industrialized regions. Ingredients are precisely measured using automated equipment and placed into giant electric mixers that mix and knead large batches of dough. The dough is fermented in temperature- and humidity-controlled proofing cabinets. The bread may be mechanically shaped at rapid speeds and baked in huge, steam-injected or convection ovens, then cooled and mechanically sliced. It is then packaged for sale and distributed by truck to retail outlets, such as grocery stores and restaurants across the country.

IV

Nutritional Qualities of Bread

Bread made with only whole wheat flour, water, yeast, and salt is highly nutritious. It is low in fat and contains significant amounts of essential nutrients such as protein, carbohydrates, fiber, iron, and calcium, as well as the vitamins niacin, thiamine, and riboflavin, which are derived primarily from the germ and bran of the wheat. Bran is an excellent source of dietary fiber, indigestible parts of plants believed to have a variety of health benefits.

Often the germ and bran is removed in the process of making white flour, decreasing the flour’s nutritional value. To compensate for this loss of nutrients, commercial bread manufacturers enrich white flour by adding minerals and supplemental vitamins. In many countries governmental health agencies enforce particular enrichment standards. In the United States, for example, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires that enriched breads contain specified amounts of thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, and iron. Flour in the United States is also fortified with additional calcium and phosphorus.

V

The History of Bread Making

Although people have been making bread for thousands of years, its exact origins are unknown. During the late Stone Age, nomadic tribes probably made a thick gruel from wild grain and baked it into flat cakes on hot stones in their campfires. About 10,000 years ago nomadic tribes settled and began cultivating grains, among them einkorn and emmer, the ancestors of modern domestic wheat. Around 6000 bc Swiss lake dwellers improved on the wild grain-gruel recipe by crushing grains to make a flatbread. Archaeological evidence suggests that yeast-risen wheat breads were developed in Egypt around 4000 years ago. The Egyptians are also believed to be the first to grind wheat flour in a process analogous to modern milling.

Technical advances continued to improve bread-making techniques, among them the use of the yeast-containing residue of the brewing process as a leavening agent. Bread bakers no longer had to rely on wild airborne yeast or sourdough starters, and by the 3rd century bc, yeast was manufactured commercially in Egypt.

Greeks who colonized the Mediterranean between about 700 and 130 bc were avid bakers. They refined flours to eliminate the impurities; seasoned their breads and cakes with honey, sesame, and fruits; and invented a stone oven for baking bread. By the 2nd century ad Roman bakeries produced several different kinds of bread, and the Romans introduced their bread to all the lands they conquered.

During the early half of the Middle Ages, around the 5th century to the 10th century, political conditions caused trade between countries to decline. Wheat crops, grown in warm, dry climates, became less available to bakers in the cool, damp countries of northern Europe. Northern bakers perfected rye, oat, and barley breads, and a tradition of dark, hearty bread making persists in some regions of northern Europe today.

Colonial Americans made bread from cornmeal at home, baking it in the fireplace hearth. Wheat for bread became available as American settlers migrated westward to the plains—regions with climates suitable for wheat farming—and established cooperative mills for grinding grain. Railroads made grain and flour distribution efficient and cost-effective. Bread makers had to make their own yeast or rely on old dough starters for leavening until 1868, when prepared packaged yeast was made available for sale to the public.

In the 20th century, industrial and technological improvements made the time-consuming flour-refining process less expensive. White flour, once considered a delicacy for the upper classes, replaced whole wheat flour as the cheapest, most widely produced flour. Until the early 20th century, white flour was not fortified with the vitamins and minerals lost during the refining process, and conditions caused by vitamin deficiencies became more prevalent as white bread replaced whole wheat bread in popularity. Cases of beriberi, a condition resulting from a lack of thiamine, and pellagra, caused by dietary niacin deficiencies, increased dramatically. Many governments, including the United States, began enforcing mandatory vitamin and mineral fortification requirements. These programs have been quite successful, and cases of beriberi and pellagra are now very rare in industrialized countries.

In the 21st century, consumers in Canada and the United States began to favor a greater variety and more healthful types of bread. In response to this demand, supermarkets began to offer more than just white bread and whole wheat bread. Breads made with different types of grains and without trans fats, which are produced when polyunsaturated oils are hydrogenated, were sought after. Breads made of organically grown wheat also became popular, and chain stores offering freshly baked, hand-kneaded varieties of bread began to open across the North American continent.

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