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The basic
flat breads of this type also formed a
staple in the diet of many early
civilizations with the Sumerians eating a
type of barley flat cake, and the 12th
century BC Egyptians being able to purchase
a flat bread called ta from stalls in the
village streets.
The development of leavened bread is
commonly believed to have occurred in Egypt,
due to its favorable wheat growing
conditions, and required the development of
wheat varieties with two properties not
available in earlier varieties. The first
development occurred by the beginning of
Dynastic Egypt and consisted of a grain that
could be satisfactorily threshed without
being first toasted. Discovery of a wheat
variety containing sufficient gluten-forming
protein was the second development required
for raised bread. Initial development of
leavened bread is believed to have occurred
during the 17th century BC, but the wheat
capable of producing it appears to have been
rare for a very long time after it was
initially developed. This scarcity is
suggested by the fact that such grain did
not become common in Ancient Greece until
the 4th Century BC despite regular trade
having occurred between Egypt and Greece for
the previous 300 years.
There were multiple sources of leavening
available for early bread. Air borne yeasts
could be harnessed by leaving uncooked dough
exposed to air for some time before cooking.
Pliny the Elder reported that the Gauls and
Iberians used the foam skimmed from beer to
produce "a lighter kind of bread than other
peoples". Parts of the ancient world that
drank wine instead of beer used a paste
composed of grape juice and flour that was
allowed to begin fermenting, or wheat bran
steeped in wine, as a source for yeast. The
most common source of leavening however was
to retain a piece of dough from the previous
day to utilize as a form of sourdough
starter.
Even within antiquity there was a wide
variety of breads available. In the
Deipnosophistae, the Greek author Athenaeus
describes some of the breads, cakes,
cookies, and pastries available in the
Classical world. Among the breads mentioned
are griddle cakes, honey-and-oil bread,
mushroom shaped loaves covered in poppy
seeds, and the military specialty of rolls
baked on a spit. The type and quality of
flour used to produce bread could also vary
as noted by Diphilus when he declared "bread
made of wheat, as compared with that made of
barley, is more nourishing, more digestible,
and in every way superior. In order of
merit, the bread made from refined
[thoroughly sieved] flour comes first, after
that bread from ordinary wheat, and then the
unbolted, made of flour that has not been
sifted."
Within medieval Europe bread served not only
as a staple food but also as part of the
table service. In the standard table setting
of the day the trencher, a piece of stale
bread roughly 6 inches by 4 inches (15 cm by
10 cm), served as an absorbent plate. At the
completion of a meal the trencher could then
be eaten, given to the poor, or fed to the
dogs. It was not until the 15th Century that
trenchers made of wood started to replace
the bread variety.
Otto Frederick Rohwedder is considered to be
the father of sliced bread. In 1912
Rohwedder started work on inventing a
machine that sliced bread, but bakeries were
reluctant to use it since they were
concerned the sliced bread would go stale.
It wasn't until 1928, when Rohwedder
invented a machine that both sliced and
wrapped the bread, that sliced bread caught
on. A bakery in Chillicothe, Missouri was
the first to use this machine to produce
sliced bread.
For generations, white bread was considered
the preferred bread of the rich while the
poor ate dark bread. However, the
connotations reversed in the 20th century
with dark bread becoming preferred as having
superior nutritional value while white bread
became associated with lower class ignorance
of nutrition.
Recently, domestic bread makers that
automate the process of making bread are
becoming popular in the home.
Bread is a popular food in Western and most
other societies except for the Asian
societies that typically prefer rice. It is
often made from a wheat-flour dough that is
cultured with yeast, allowed to rise, and
finally baked in an oven. Owing to its high
levels of gluten (which give the dough
sponginess and elasticity), wheat is the
most common grain used for the preparation
of bread, but bread is also made from the
flour of rye, barley, maize (or corn), and
oats, usually, but not always, in
combination with wheat flour.
Composition and Chemistry
Formulation
The amount of water and flour are the most
significant measurements in a bread recipe,
as they affect texture and crumb the most.
Professional bakers use a system of
percentages known as Bakers' Percentage in
their recipe formulations, and measure
ingredients by weight instead of by volume.
Measurement by weight is much more accurate
and consistent that measurement by volume,
especially for the dry ingredients.
Flour is always 100%, and the rest of the
ingredients are a percent of that amount by
weight. Common table bread in the U.S. uses
approximately 50% water, resulting in a
finely textured, light, bread. Most artisan
bread formulas contain anywhere from 60 to
75% water. In yeast breads, the higher water
percentages result in more CO2 bubbles, and
a coarser bread crumb. One pound of flour
will yield a standard loaf of bread, or two
French loaves.
Flour
Flour is a product made from grain that has
been ground into a powdery consistency. It
is flour that provides the primary structure
to the final baked bread. Commonly available
flours are made from rye, barley, maize, and
other grains, but it is wheat flour that is
most commonly used for breads. Each of these
grains provides starch and protein to the
final product.
Wheat flour in addition to its starch
contains three water soluble proteins
groups, albumin, globulin, proteoses, and
two non-water soluble proteins groups,
glutenin and gliadin. When flour is mixed
with water the water-soluble proteins
dissolve, leaving the glutenin and gliadin
to form the structure of the resulting
dough. When worked by kneading, the glutenin
forms strands of long thin chainlike
molecules while the shorter gliadin forms
bridges between the stands of glutenin. The
resulting networks of strands produced by
these two proteins is known as gluten.
Liquids
Water, or some other liquid, is used to form
the flour into a paste or dough. The volume
of liquid required varies between recipes,
but a ratio of 1 cup of liquid to 3 cups of
flour is common for yeast breads while
recipes that use steam as the primary
leavening method may have a liquid content
in excess of one part liquid to one part
flour by volume. In addition to water, other
types of liquids that may be used include
dairy products, fruit juices, or beer. In
addition to the water in each of these they
also bring additional sweeteners, fats, and
or leavening components.
Leavening
Leavening is the process of adding gas to a
dough before baking to produce a lighter,
more easily chewed bread. Most bread
consumed in the West is leavened. But there
is also unleavened bread which has important
symbolic use in Judaism (Matzo) and is used
by some Christian churches.
Chemical leavening
A simple technique for leavening bread is
the use of gas-producing chemicals. There
are two common methods. The first is to use
baking powder or a self-rising flour that
includes baking powder. The second is to
have an acidic ingredient such as buttermilk
and add baking soda. The reaction of the
acid with the soda produces gas.
Chemically-leavened breads are called quick
breads and soda breads. This technique is
commonly used to make muffins and sweet
breads such as banana bread.
Yeast leavening
Many breads are leavened by the fungus
yeast. The yeast ferments carbohydrates in
the flour and any sugar, producing carbon
dioxide. Most commercial and home bakers in
the U.S. leaven their doughs with baker's
yeast. Baker's yeast produces uniform,
quick, and reliable results.
Both the baker's yeast, and the sourdough
method of baking bread follow the same
pattern. Water is mixed with flour, salt and
the leavening agent (baker's yeast or
sourdough starter). Other additions (spices,
herbs, fats, seeds, fruit, etc.) are not
necessary to bake bread, but often used. The
mixed dough is then allowed to rise one or
more times (a longer rising time results in
more flavor, so bakers often punch down the
dough and let it rise again), then loaves
are formed and (after an optional final
rising time) the bread is baked in an oven.
Many breads are made from a straight dough,
which means that all of the ingredients are
combined in one step, and the dough baked
after the rising time. Alternatively, doughs
can be made with the starter method, when
some of the flour, water, and the leavening
are combined a day or so ahead of baking,
and allowed to ferment overnight. (Such as
the poolish typically used for baguettes) On
the day of the baking, the rest of the
ingredients are added, and the rest of the
process is the same as that for straight
doughs. This produces a more flavorful bread
with better texture. Many bakers see the
starter method as a compromise between the
highly reliable results of baker's yeast,
and the flavor/complexity of a longer
fermentation. It also allows the baker to
use only a minimal amount of baker's yeast,
which was scarce and expensive when it first
became available.
The sour taste of sourdoughs actually comes
not from the yeast, but from a
lactobacillus, with which the yeast lives in
symbiosis. The lactobacillus feeds on the
byproducts of the yeast fermentation, and in
turn makes the culture go sour by excreting
lactic acid, which protects it from spoiling
(since most microbes are unable to survive
in an acid environment). All breads used to
be sourdoughs, and the leavening process was
not understood until the 19th century, when
with the advance of microscopes, scientists
were able to discover the microbes that make
the dough rise. Since then, strains of yeast
have been selected and cultured mainly for
reliability and quickness of fermentation.
Billions of cells of these strains are then
packaged and marketed as "Baker's Yeast".
Bread made with baker's yeast is not sour
because of the absence of the lactobacillus.
Bakers around the world quickly embraced
baker's yeast for it made baking simple and
so allowed for more flexibility in the
bakery's operations. It made baking quick as
well, allowing bakeries to make fresh bread
from scratch as often as three times a day.
While European bakeries kept producing
sourdough breads, in the U.S., sourdough
baking was widely replaced by baker's yeast,
and only recently has that country (or parts
of it, at least) seen the rebirth of
sour-vinegar dough in artisan bakeries.
Sourdough breads are most often made with a
sourdough starter (not to be confused with
the starter method discussed above). A
sourdough starter is a culture of yeast and
lactobacillus. It is essentially a
dough-like or pancake-like flour/water
mixture in which the yeast and lactobacilli
fungus live. A starter can be maintained
indefinitely by periodically discarding a
part of it and refreshing it by adding fresh
flour and water. (When refrigerated, a
starter can go weeks without needing to be
fed.) There are starters owned by bakeries
and families that are several human
generations old, much revered for creating a
special taste or texture. Starters can be
obtained by taking a piece of another
starter and growing it, or they can be made
from scratch. There are hobbyist groups on
the web who will send their starter for a
stamped, self-addressed envelope, and there
are even mail-order companies that sell
different starters from all over the world.
An acquired starter has the advantage to be
more proven and established (stable and
reliable, resisting spoiling and behaving
predictably) than from-scratch starters.
There are other ways of sourdough baking and
culture maintenance. A more traditional one
is the process that was followed by peasant
families throughout Europe in past
centuries. The family (usually the woman was
in charge of bread making) would bake on a
fixed schedule, perhaps once a week. The
starter was saved from the previous week's
dough. The starter was mixed with the new
ingredients, the dough was left to rise,
then a piece of it was saved (to be the
starter for next week's bread). The rest was
formed into loaves which were marked with
the family sign (this is where today's
decorative slashing of bread loaves
originates from), and taken to the communal
oven to bake. These communal ovens over time
evolved into what we know today as bakeries,
when certain people specialized in bread
baking, and with time enhanced the process
so far as to be able to mass produce cheap
bread for everyone in the village.
San Francisco sourdoughs
The most famous sourdough bread made in the
U.S. is the San Francisco Sourdough, which
in contrast to the majority of the country
has remained in continuous production for
nearly 150 years, with some bakeries able to
trace their starters back to the American
conquest of California. It is a white bread,
characterized by a pronounced sourness (not
all sourdoughs are as sour as the San
Francisco Sourdough), so much so that the
dominant strain of lactobacillus in
sourdough starters was named Lactobacillus
sanfrancisco.
Steam leavening
The rapid expansion of steam produced during
baking leavens the bread, which is as simple
as it is unpredictable. The best known
steam-leavened bread is the popover.
Steam-leavening is unpredictable since the
steam isn't produced until the bread is
baked.
Steam leavening happens regardless of the
rising agents (soda powder, yeast,
baking-powder, sour dough, egg snow…)
- The rising agent generates carbon dioxide
- or already contains air bubbles.
- The heat vaporizes the water from the
inner surface of the bubbles within the
dough.
- The steam expands and makes the bread
rise.
It is actually the main factor in the rise.
CO2 generation, on its own, is too small to
account for the rise. Heat kills bacteria or
yeast at an early stage, so the CO2
generation is stopped.
Bacterial leavening
Salt-risen bread employs a form of bacterial
leavening that does not require yeast.
Although the leavening action is not always
consistent, and requires close attention to
the incubating conditions, this bread is
making a comeback due to its unique
cheese-like flavor and fine texture.
Fats or shortenings
Fats such as butter, vegetable oils, lard,
or that contained in eggs affects the
development of gluten in breads by coating
and lubricating the individual strands of
protein and also helping hold the structure
together. If too much fat is included in a
bread dough, the lubrication effect will
cause the protein structures to divide. A
fat content of approximately 3% by weight is
the concentration that will produce the
greatest leavening action.
In addition to their effects on leavening,
fats also serve to tenderize the breads they
are used in and also help to keep the bread
fresh longer after baking.
Breads across different cultures
There are many variations on the basic
recipe of bread, including
pizza, chapatis,
tortillas, baguettes, pitas, lavash,
biscuits, pretzels, naan, bagels, puris, and
many other variations.
- In
Britain and the United States, the most
widely consumed type of bread is
soft-textured with a thin crust and is
sold ready-sliced in packages. It is
usually eaten with the crust, but some
eaters or preparers may remove the crust
due to a personal preference or style of
serving, as for high tea.
- In
Scotland, another form of bread called
plain bread is also consumed. Plain bread
loaves are noticeably taller and thinner,
with burned crusts at only the top and
bottom of the loaf. Plain bread has a much
firmer texture than British and American
pan bread. Plain Bread is becoming less
common as the Bread consumed elsewhere in
Britain is becoming more popular with
consumers.
- In
France, pan bread is known as pain de mie
and is used only for toast or for making
stuffing; standard bread (in the form of
baguettes or thicker breads) has a thick
crust and often has large bubbles of air
inside. Some fancy breads contain walnuts,
or are encrusted with poppy seeds.
- White
bread is made from flour containing only
the central core of the grain (endosperm).
- Brown
bread is made with endosperm and 10% bran.
- Whole
meal bread contains the whole of the wheat
grain (endosperm and bran).
- Wheat germ bread has added wheat germ
for flavoring.
-
Wholegrain bread is white bread with added
wholegrain to increase the fiber content.
- Granary
bread is bread made from granary flour,
trademarked to Hovis made from malted
white or brown flour, wheat germ and
wholegrain.
- Stottie
cake is a thick, flat, round loaf.
Stotties are common in the North East of
England. Although it is called a cake, it
is a type of bread.
Bread in
Germany
Germany has the widest variety of bread
available to its residents. About 300 types
of breads and approximately 1200 different
types of pastry and rolls are produced in
about 17,000 bakeries and another 10,000
in-shop bakeries.
80 million people consume around 1,100,000
tons of bread, 5,024,000,000 rolls and
454,000,000 pretzels per year. This is a
world record. Bread is served with almost
every meal. A German breakfast typically
consists of sliced bread or Brötchen (rolls)
with either cold cuts,
cheeses etc. or jam,
honey and other sweet toppings. For supper,
traditionally, it is usually just cold cuts
and cheese, although this tradition is
rapidly changing. Bread is not considered a
side dish and is considered important for a
healthy diet. Germany's top nine in bread
are:
- 1.
Rye-wheat ("Roggenmischbrot")
- 2.
Toastbread (white bread)
- 3.
whole-grain ("Vollkornbrot")
- 4.
Wheat-rye ("Weizenmischbrot")
- 5. White
bread ("Weißbrot")
- 6.
Multi-grain ("Mehrkornbrot")
- 7. Rye
("Roggenbrot")
- 8.
Sunflower seed ("Sonnenblumenkernbrot")
- 9.
Pumpkin seed ("Kürbiskernbrot")
Especially
the darker kinds of bread like Vollkornbrot
or Schwarzbrot are typical of German
cuisine. Internationally well known is
Pumpernickel which is steamed for a very
long time, it is one kind of dark bread from
Germany but not representative. Most German
breads are made with sourdough. Whole grain
is preferred for high fibre. Germans use
almost all available types of grain for
their breads: wheat, rye, barley, spelt,
oats, sorghum, corn and rice. Some breads
are even made from potato flour.
French Style Baking
The French are renowned for their artisan
breads. By using the four basic ingredients
of water, flour, yeast, and salt, the French
have mastered the art of creating complex
breads that widely vary, despite the fact
that each loaf contains the mixture of the
same ingredients. French law dictates that
for “French” style breads, only the four
above-mentioned ingredients may be used,
along with ascorbic acid and rye flour. By
manipulating rising times, kneading
techniques, and with the use of specialty
brick ovens, the French breads are as varied
and unique as the regions in France.
Denmark and Bread
Bread is a very important part of the
Scandinavian table and lunches at home or in
the workplace (and in Danish restaurants)
will usually be based on bread, primarily
rugbrød, which is unleavened rye bread. It
is a dark, heavy bread which is often bought
pre-sliced, in varieties from light-colored
rye, to very dark, and refined to
wholegrain. It forms the basis of
smørrebrød, which is closely related to the
Swedish smorgasbord, literally 'spread
bread' (smør is butter). Traditional
toppings include sild, which are pickled
herrings (marinerede - plain, krydder -
spiced, or karry - curried, being the most
popular), slightly sweeter than Dutch or
German herrings; thinly-sliced cheese in
many varieties; sliced cucumber, tomato and
boiled eggs; leverpostej, which is pork
liver-paste; dozens of types of cured or
processed meat in thin slices, or smoked
fish such as salmon; mackerel in tomato
sauce; pickled cucumber; boiled egg, and
rings of red onion. Mayonnaise mixed with
peas and diced carrot, remoulade or other
thick sauces often top the layered open
sandwich, which is usually eaten with
utensils. It is custom to pass the dish of
sliced breads around the table, and then to
pass around each dish of toppings, and
people help themselves. Hundreds of
combinations and varieties of smørrebord are
available. A famous and very old restaurant
in Copenhagen's historic Nyhavn harbour, Ida
Davidsen, serves up many imaginative
combinations, and the fridge in a typical
Danish home will often be stocked with
toppings for rugbrødsmad, or 'ryebread
meal', which is a way of saying 'a plain
normal lunch'. Denmark has strong traditions
of special types of food eaten at particular
times of the year, such as smoked eel with
slices of a sort of scrambled-egg loaf eaten
on ryebread at New Year, accompanied by
beer. Other types of bread are sold in
supermarkets and in bakeries, which are
important shops in every town and shopping
centre. Many women still bake at home,
particularly boller, which are small bread
rolls, and often the traditional kringle,
which is a long cooked dough with currants
and a brown-sugar and butter paste.
Home-baked bread uses moist yeast, and many
thousands of packs are sold every day, the
major brand being a division of Carlsberg
Brewery. In the great trucking strikes of
1998, yeast was one of the first products to
be sold out in shops, indicating the
importance of home baking in Denmark. Sliced
square white bread is known in Denmark as
franskbrød, literally 'French bread', and is
not as common as it is in many other western
countries. People often eat jam with cheese
on crusty white bread for breakfast, and
also very thin slices of chocolate, called
pålægschokolade. Another popular way of
consuming bread in Denmark is as tiny buns
for long hotdogs, like small puffy napkins
made out of white bread, which are available
in little kiosks everywhere and in
pølservogn ('sausage-vans') that move about
the cities.
Recipes
The following instructions to make bread
were taken from the Household Cyclopedia of
1881:
"Place in a large pan twenty-eight pounds of
flour; make a hole with the hand in the
centre of it like a large basin, into which
strain a pint of brewer's yeast; this must
be tested, and if too bitter a little flour
sprinkled into it, and then strained
directly, then pour in two quarts of water
of the temperature of 100 °F (about 40 °C),
or blood heat, and stir the flour round from
the bottom of the hole formed by the hand
till that part of the flour is quite thick
and well mixed, though all the rest must
remain unwetted; then sprinkle a little
flour over the moist part and cover it with
a cloth; this is called sponge, and must be
left to rise. Some leave it only half an
hour, others all night.
"When the sponge is light, however, add four
quarts of water the same temperature as
above, and well knead the whole mass into a
smooth dough. This is hard work if done
well. Then cover the dough and leave it for
an hour. In cold weather both sponge and
dough must be placed on the kitchen hearth,
or in some room not too cold, or it will not
rise well. Before the last water is put in
two tablespoonful of salt must be sprinkled
over the flour. Sometimes the flour will
absorb another pint of water.
"After the dough has risen it should be made
quickly into loaves; if much handled then
the bread will be heavy. It will require an
hour and a half to bake, if made into four
pound loaves. The oven should be well heated
before the dough is put into it. To try its
heat, throw a little flour into it; if it
brown directly, it will do."
Etymology
The word itself, Old English bread, is
common in various forms to many Germanic
languages; such as German Brot, Dutch brood,
Swedish bröd, and Norwegian brød; it has
been derived from the root of brew, but more
probably is connected with the root of
break, for its early uses are confined to
broken pieces, or bits of bread, the Latin
frustum, and it was not until the 12th
century that it took the place—as the
generic name for bread—of hlaf (modern
English loaf), which appears to be the
oldest Teutonic name; Old High German hleib
and modern German Laib, or Finnish leipä,
Estonian leib, and Russian khleb are similar
(all are derived from Old Germanic).
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