Bread

:For other uses, see Bread (disambiguation).

Types

Bread is a popular food in Western society. 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.

Related Topics:
Food - Wheat - Flour - Dough - Oven - Gluten - Rye - Barley - Maize - Oat

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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.

Related Topics:
Judaism - Matzo - Christian

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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.

Related Topics:
Baking powder - Self-rising flour - Buttermilk - Baking soda

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Chemically-leavened breads are called called quick breads and soda breads. This technique is commonly used to make muffins and sweet breads such as banana bread.

Related Topics:
Soda bread - Muffin - Banana bread

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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, but does so at the cost of losing the more complex flavors of sourdough breads. Sourdough breads also generally keep longer and have a better (less regular) texture. Many bakeries in Europe still bake sourdough breads, and in the U.S., there is an increasing number of artisan bakeries (as well as devoted hobbyists) that are rediscovering the art of baking sourdough breads. The sourdough method produces especially flavorful whole wheat and rye breads.

Related Topics:
Fungus - Yeast - Ferments - Carbohydrates - Sugar - Carbon dioxide - Baker's yeast - Sourdough - Europe - Artisan - Whole wheat - Rye

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It is difficult to say when humans first discovered fermentation as a means to leaven doughs, but leavened breads seem to have originated in ancient Egypt. A popular theory is that Egyptian beer brewers must at some point have discovered that when the foam from the fermenting vessels is mixed into their doughs, it will result in a much lighter and airy flatbread. Beer brewing and bread baking are similar crafts in many ways.

Related Topics:
Egypt - Beer - Brewing

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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.

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Many breads (such as the famous baguette) 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. 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 used to be scarce and expensive when it first became available.

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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 sourdough in artisan bakeries.

Related Topics:
Lactobacillus - Symbiosis - Lactic acid

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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 lactobacillus 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 (sourdough bakers usually are willing to give out pieces of their starters) 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 mailorder 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.

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There are other ways of sourdough baking and culture maintenance. A more traditional one is the process that was followed by peasant families throghout Europe in past centuries. The family (usually the woman was in charge of breadmaking) 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.

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The most famous sourdough bread made in the U.S. is the San Francisco Sourdough. 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.

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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.

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Steam leavening happens regardless of the rising agents (soda powder, yeast, baking-powder, sour dough, egg snow…)

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• The rising agent generates carbon dioxide - or already contains air bubbles.
• The heat vaporises the water from the inner surface of the bubbles within the dough.
• The steam expends 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.

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Bacterial leavening

Usually called salt-risen bread, this is an uncommon form of leavening due to its inconsistent results. However, the bread has a unique cheese-like flavor that is often desired.

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