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Bread

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 14:27:37 +0100

Bread

Various leavened breads

Naan, a leavened flatbread from India and Persia

Bread, white (typical)
Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz)

Energy 270 kcal 1110 kJ

Carbohydrates	51 g
- Dietary fiber 2.4 g
Fat	3 g
Protein	8 g
Thiamine (Vit. B1) 0.5 mg	38%
Riboflavin (Vit. B2) 0.3 mg	20%
Niacin (Vit. B3) 4 mg	27%
Sodium 681 mg	30%

Percentages are relative to US
recommendations for adults.

Bread, whole-wheat (typical)
Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz)

Energy 250 kcal 1030 kJ

Carbohydrates	46 g
- Dietary fiber 7 g
Fat	4 g
Protein	10 g
Thiamine (Vit. B1) 0.4 mg	31%
Riboflavin (Vit. B2) 0.2 mg	13%
Niacin (Vit. B3) 4 mg	27%
Sodium 527 mg	23%

Percentages are relative to US
recommendations for adults.

Bread is a staple food prepared by cooking a dough of flour and water and possibly more ingredients. Doughs are usually baked in the Western world (and many other countries), but in some cuisines breads are steamed, fried, or baked on a hot skillet.^[1] It may be leavened or unleavened. Salt, fat and leavening agents such as yeast and baking soda are common ingredients, though bread may contain other ingredients, such as milk, egg, sugar, spice, fruit (such as raisins), vegetables (such as onion), nuts (such as walnuts) or seeds (such as poppy seeds). Bread is one of the oldest prepared foods, dating back to the Neolithic era. The development of leavened bread can probably also be traced to prehistoric times.

Fresh bread is prized for its taste, aroma, quality and texture. Retaining its freshness is important to keep it appetizing. Bread that has stiffened or dried past its prime is said to be stale. Modern bread is sometimes wrapped in paper or plastic film, or stored in a container such as a breadbox to keep it fresh longer. Bread that is kept in warm, moist environments is prone to the growth of mold. Bread kept at low temperatures, for example, in a refrigerator, will develop mold growth more slowly than bread kept at room temperature. However, unwrapped bread kept in a typical household refrigerator will turn stale quickly due to the low humidity of the air.

The soft, inner part of bread is known to bakers and other culinary professionals as the crumb, which is not to be confused with small bits of bread that often fall off, called crumbs. The outer hard portion of bread is called the crust.

Etymology

The word itself, Old English bread, is common in various forms to many Germanic languages; such as Frisian brea, Dutch brood, German Brot, Swedish bröd, Norwegian and Danish brød; it has been claimed to be derived from the root of brew. However, it may be connected with the root of break, for its early uses are confined to broken pieces, or bits of bread, the Latin crustum, and it was not until the 12th century that it took the place—as the generic name for bread—of hlaf (hlaifs in Gothic: 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 хлеб (khleb) are similar (all are derived from the Old German word for "loaf").

History

Main article: History of bread

Bread preserved and blackened by volcanic ash from Pompeii

Bread is one of the oldest prepared foods, dating back to the Neolithic era. The first bread produced was probably cooked versions of a grain-paste, made from ground cereal grains and water, and may have been developed by accidental cooking or deliberate experimentation with water and grain flour. Descendants of this early bread are still commonly made from various grains in many parts of the world, including the Iranian (Persian) lavashs, taboons, sangaks, Mexican tortilla, Indian chapatis, rotis and naans, Scottish oatcake, North American johnnycake, Middle Eastern pita, and Ethiopian injera. Flat bread of these types 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.^[2]

The development of leavened bread can probably also be traced to prehistoric times. Yeast spores occur everywhere, including the surface of cereal grains, so any dough left to rest will become naturally leavened. Although leavening is likely of prehistoric origin, the earliest archaeological evidence is from ancient Egypt. Scanning electron microscopy has detected yeast cells in some ancient Egyptian loaves. However, ancient Egyptian bread was made from emmer wheat and has a dense crumb. In cases where yeast cells are not visible, it is difficult, by visual examination, to determine whether the bread was leavened. As a result, the extent to which bread was leavened in ancient Egypt remains uncertain.^[3]

There were multiple sources of leavening available for early bread. Airborne 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.^[4]

Even within antiquity there were a wide variety of breads. In the Deipnosophistae, the Greek author Athenaeus describes some of the bread, 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 flours 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."^[5]

Peasants sharing bread, from the Livre du roi Modus et de la reine Ratio, France, 14th century. (Bibliothèque nationale)

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 by 4 inches (15 cm × 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 fifteenth century that trenchers made of wood started to replace the bread variety.^[6]

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 was not 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 the preferred bread of the rich while the poor ate dark (whole grain) bread. However, in most western societies, the connotations reversed in the late 20th century with whole grain bread becoming preferred as having superior nutritional value while white bread became associated with lower-class ignorance of nutrition.^{[citation needed]}

Another major advance happened in 1961 with the development of the Chorleywood Bread Process which used the intense mechanical working of dough to dramatically reduce the fermentation period and the time taken to produce a loaf. The process, whose high-energy mixing allows for the use of inferior grain, is now widely used around the world in large factories.

More recently, and especially in smaller retail bakeries, chemical additives are used that both speed up mixing time and reduce necessary fermentation time, so that a batch of bread may be mixed, made up, risen, and baked in less than 3 hours. Dough that does not require fermentation because of chemical additives is called "no-time bread" by commercial bakers. Common additives include reducing agents such as L-cysteine or sodium metabisulfite, and oxidants such as potassium bromate or ascorbic acid.^[7] Often these chemicals are added to dough in the form of a prepackaged base, which also contains most or all of the dough's non-flour ingredients. Using such bases and sophisticated chemistry, it has been possible for commercial bakers to make imitations of artisan and sourdough breads, traditionally made by semi-skilled labor working in smaller shops.

Recently, domestic breadmakers that automate the process of making bread have become popular in the home.

Cultural and political importance of bread

As a foodstuff of great historical and contemporary importance, in many cultures in the West and Near and Middle East bread has a significance beyond mere nutrition. The Lord's Prayer, for example, contains the line 'Give us today our daily bread'; here, 'bread' is commonly understood to mean necessities in general. The Roman poet Juvenal satirised superficial politicians and the public as caring only for "bread and circuses". In Israel the most usual phrase in work related demonstrations is "lekhem, avoda" [bread, work], and during the 1950s, the beatnik community used the term bread as a euphemism for money. In Cockney Rhyming Slang, bread means money and is derived from the phrase bread and honey.^[8] The word bread is now commonly used around the world in English speaking countries as a synonym for money (as also is the case with the word dough.) The cultural importance of 'bread' goes beyond slang, however, to serve as a metaphor for basic necessities and living conditions in general. A 'bread-winner' is a household's main economic contributor and has little to do with actual bread-provision, for example. This also goes along with the phrase "putting bread on the table." A remarkable or revolutionary innovation is often referred to as "the greatest thing since sliced bread." In the USSR in 1917, Lenin and his fellow Bolsheviks promised "Peace, Land, and Bread."^[9]^[10] In Newfoundland, bread was seen as having the power to protect against fairies. The term "breadbasket" is often used to denote an agriculturally productive region. In Slavic cultures bread and salt is offered as a welcome to all guests. In India, life's basic necessities are often referred to as "roti, kapra aur makan" [bread, cloth and house].

The political significance of bread is considerable. In Britain in the nineteenth century the inflated price of bread due to the Corn Laws caused major political and social divisions, and was central to debates over free trade and protectionism. The Assize of Bread and Ale in the thirteenth century showed the importance of bread in medieval times by setting heavy punishments for short-changing bakers, and bread appeared in Magna Carta a half-century earlier.

Types

Quick breads

Main article: Quick bread

Quick breads usually refer to breads chemically leavened, usually with both baking powder and baking soda, and a balance of acidic ingredients, and alkaline ingredients. Examples include: pancakes, waffles, muffins, and Boston brown bread.

Composition and chemistry

Formulation

The amount of flour is the most significant measurement in a bread recipe, as it affects 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 than measurement by volume, especially for the dry ingredients.

Flour is always stated as 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 (~ 450 g) of flour will yield a standard loaf of bread, or two French loaves.

Calcium propionate is commonly added by commercial bakeries to retard the growth of molds.

Flour

Main article: 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 the starch and protein necessary for the production of bread.

The quantity of the proteins contained in the flour serve as the best indicator of the quality of the bread dough and the finished bread. While bread can be made from all-purpose wheat flour, for quality bread a specialty bread flour, containing more protein, is recommended. If one uses a flour with a lower (9-11%) protein content to produce bread, a longer mixing time will be required to develop gluten strength properly. This extended mixing time leads to oxidization of the dough, which gives the finished product a whiter crumb, instead of the cream color preferred by most artisan bakers.

Wheat flour in addition to its starch contains three water-soluble protein groups, albumin, globulin, proteoses, and two non-water soluble protein 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 strands of glutenin. The resulting networks of strands produced by these two proteins are known as gluten. Gluten development improves if the dough is allowed to autolyse.

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 part liquid to 3 parts 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 or during baking to produce a lighter, more easily chewed bread. Most bread consumed in the West is leavened. However, unleavened breads have symbolic importance in Judaism and Christianity. Jews consume unleavened bread called Matza during Passover. They are also used in the Roman Catholic Christian liturgy when they celebrate the Eucharist, a rite derived from the narrative of the Last Supper when Jesus broke bread with his disciples, perhaps during a Passover Seder. On the other hand, the Orthodox Church always uses leavened bread.

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, pancakes, American-style biscuits and sweet breads such as banana bread.

Yeast leavening

Dough before first rising.

Dough after first rising.

Dough after proving in tin, ready to bake.

Many breads are leavened by yeast. The yeast used for leavening bread is Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the same species used for brewing alcoholic beverages. This yeast ferments carbohydrates in the flour, including any sugar, producing carbon dioxide. Most bakers in the U.S. leaven their dough with commercially produced baker's yeast. Baker's yeast has the advantage of producing uniform, quick, and reliable results, because it is obtained from a pure culture. Many artisan bakers produce their own yeast by preparing a 'growth culture' which they then use in the making of bread. This culture kept in the right conditions will continue to grow and provide leavening for many years.

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, dough can be made using a pre-ferment, 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 dough. 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. Most yeasted preferments fall into one of three categories: poolish or pouliche, a loose-textured mixture composed of roughly equal amounts of flour and water (by weight); biga a stiff mixture with a higher proportion of flour; and pâte fermentée, which is simply a portion of dough reserved from a previous batch. Sourdough (also known as levain or "natural leaven") takes it a step further, creating a pre-ferment with flour and water that propagates naturally occurring yeast and bacteria (usually Saccharomyces exiguus, which is more acid-tolerant than S. cerevisiae, and various species of Lactobacillus.)

Sourdough

Main article: Sourdough

Sourdough loaves

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 yeast-leavened 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. According to Alton Brown, host of Food Network's "Good Eats" television show, each region of the world has different strains of lactobacillus, hence the flavor of the bread made from home starters is unique. The San Francisco Bay Area is especially famous for its sourdough breads.

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 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 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.

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 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 are known 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 world.

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 is not produced until the bread is baked.

Steam leavening happens regardless of the rising agents (baking soda, yeast, baking powder, sour dough, beaten egg whites, etc.)

The leavening agent either contains air bubbles or generates carbon dioxide.
The heat vaporises 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 of bread once it has been put in the oven. 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 rising 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.^[12]

Aeration

Aerated bread is leavened by carbon dioxide being forced into dough under pressure. The technique is no longer in common use, but from the mid 19th to 20th centuries bread made this way was somewhat popular in the United Kingdom, made by the Aerated Bread Company and sold in its high-street tearooms.

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 ind

Flour

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 14:12:18 +0100

Flour

Wheat flour

Flour is a powder made of cereal grains or roots. It is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many civilizations, making the availability of adequate supplies of flour a major economic and political issue at various times throughout history. Wheat flour is one of the most important foods in European and North American culture, and is the defining ingredient in most European styles of breads and pastries. Maize flour has been important in Mesoamerican cuisine since ancient times, and remains a staple in much of Latin American cuisine.

Flour contains a high proportion of starches, which are complex carbohydrates also known as polysaccharides. Leavening agents are used with some flours, especially those with significant gluten content, to produce lighter and softer baked products by embedding small gas bubbles.

The production of flour has also historically driven technological development, as attempts to make gristmills more productive and less labor-intensive led to the watermill and windmill, terms now applied more broadly to uses of water and wind power for purposes other than milling.

Etymology

The word "flour" was originally a variant of the word "flower." Both derive from the Old French fleur or flour, which had the literal meaning "blossom," and a figurative meaning "the finest." The phrase "fleur de farine'" meant "the finest part of the meal," since flour resulted from the elimination of coarse and unwanted matter from the grain during milling.^[1]

Degerminated and heat processed flour

A central problem of the industrial revolution was the preservation of flour. Transportation distances and a relatively slow distribution system collided with natural shelf life. The reason for the limited shelf life are the fatty acids of the germ which react from the moment they are exposed to oxygen. This occurs at the moment grain is milled. The fatty acids oxidize and flour starts to become rancid. Depending on climate and grain quality this process takes 6 to 9 months. In the late 19th century this period was too short for an industrial production and distribution cycle. As vitamins, micronutriants and amino acids were completely or relatively unknown in the late 19th century, taking out the germ was a brilliant solution. Without the germ flour cannot become rancid. Degerminated flour became standard. Degermination started in densely-populated areas and took approximately one generation to reach the countryside. Heat-processed flour is flour were the germ is first separated from the endosperm and bran, then processed with steam, dry heat or microwave and submerged into flour again.^[2]

Types

Wheat flour

Main article: Wheat flour

Other flours

A variety of types of flour and cereals sold at a bazaar in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

Amaranth flour is a flour produced from ground Amaranth grain. It was commonly used in pre-Columbian meso-American cuisine. It is becoming more and more available in speciality food shops.
Atta flour is a whole-grain wheat flour important in Indian and Pakistani cuisine, used for a range of breads such as roti, naan and chapati.
Bean flour is a flour produced from pulverized dried or ripe beans.
Brown rice flour is of great importance in Southeast Asian cuisine. Also edible rice paper can be made from it. Most rice flour is made from white rice, thus is essentially a pure starch, but whole-grain brown rice flour is commercially available.
Buckwheat flour is used as an ingredient in many pancakes in the United States. In Japan, it is used to make a popular noodle called Soba. In Russia, buckwheat flour is added to the batter for pancakes called blinis which are frequently eaten with caviar. Buckwheat flour is also used to make crêpes bretonnes in Brittany.
Chestnut flour is popular in Corsica, the Périgord and Lunigiana for breads, cakes and pastas. It is the original ingredient for "polenta", still used as such in Corsica and other Mediterranean locations. Chestnut bread keeps fresh for as long as two weeks.^[3] In other parts of Italy it is mainly used for desserts.
Chickpea flour (also known as gram flour or besan) is of great importance in Indian cuisine, and in Italy, where it is used for the Ligurian farinata.
Chuño flour made from dried potatoes in various countries of South America
Corn (maize) flour is popular in the Southern and Southwestern US, Mexico, South America, and Punjab regions of India and Pakistan. Coarse whole-grain corn flour is usually called corn meal. Corn meal that has been bleached with lye is called masa harina (see masa) and is used to make tortillas and tamales in Mexican cooking. Corn flour should never be confused with cornstarch, which is known as "cornflour" in British English.
Cornstarch is just the "refined form" of Cornflour.
Glutinous rice flour or sticky rice flour, used in east and southeast Asian cuisines for making tangyuan etc.
Noodle flour is special blend of flour used for the making of Asian style noodles. The flour could be from wheat or rice.
Nut flours are grated from oily nuts—most commonly almonds and hazelnuts—and are used instead of or in addition to wheat flour to produce more dry and flavourful pastries and cakes. Cakes made with nut flours are usually called tortes and most originated in Central Europe, in countries such as Hungary and Austria.
Peasemeal or pea flour is a flour produced from roasted and pulverized yellow field peas.
Peanut Flour made from shelled/cooked peanuts is a higher protein alternative to using regular flour
Potato starch flour is obtained by grinding the tubers to a pulp and removing the fibre by water-washings. The dried product consists chiefly of starch, but also contains some protein. Potato starch flour is used as a thickening agent. When heated to boiling, food added with a suspension of potato flour in water thickens quickly. Because the flour is made from neither grain nor legume, it is used as substitute for wheat flour in cooking by Jews during Passover, when grains are not eaten. Often confused with Potato flour a peeled, cooked potato dried and grinded. Potato flour is cold water soluble.
Rice flour is ground kernels of rice. It is used in Western countries and especially for people who suffer from gluten intolerance, since rice does not contain gluten.
Rye flour is used to bake the traditional sourdough breads of Poland, Germany and Scandinavia. Most rye breads use a mix of rye and wheat flours because rye does not produce gluten. Pumpernickel bread is usually made exclusively of rye, and contains a mixture of rye flour and rye meal.
Tapioca flour, produced from the root of the cassava plant, is used to make breads, pancakes, tapioca pudding, a savoury porridge called fufu in Africa, and is used as a starch.
Teff flour is made from the grain teff, and is of considerable importance in eastern Africa (particularly around the horn of Africa). Notably, it is the chief ingredient in the bread injera, an important component of Ethiopian cuisine.

Flour can also be made from soy beans, peanuts, arrowroot, taro, cattails, acorns, quinoa and other non-cereal foodstuffs. In Australia, a variety of other seeds are also used to make flour for bread, these include: Acacia aneura (mulga), Acacia cowleana, Acacia estrophiolata (ironweed), Acacia ligulata (umbrella bush), Acacia murrayana (tjuntjula), Acacia tetragonophylla (wakalpulka), Acacia kempeana (Witchetty bush), Acacia coriacea (Wiry wattle), Panicum spp. (eg Panicum australiense, Panicum decompositum, Panicum effusum), Astrelba pectinata (Mitchell grass), Portulaca oleracea, Portulaca intraterranea, Oryza sativa, Marsilea drummondii (Nardoo), Atriplex nummularia (Old man saltbush), Acacia notabilis, Acacia pyrifolia, Acacia tetragonophylla, Acacia victoriae, Acacia sophorae, Acacia stenophylla, Acacia tumida, Aleurites moluccana, Amaranthus mitchellii, Amaranthus grandiflorus, Brachiaria piligera, Brachiaria milliformis, Brachychiton diversifolium, Brachychiton gregorii, Brachychiton paradoxum, Brachychiton populneum, Bruguiera rheedii, Calandrinia balonensis, Canarium australianum, Canavalia maritima, Entada phaseolides, Eragrostris eriopoda (Wangunu), Eucalyptus leptopoda, Eucalyptus microtheca, Nymphae gigantea, Rhyncharrhena linearis, Themeda australis

Flour type numbers

In some markets, the different available flour varieties are labeled according to the ash mass ("mineral content") that remains after a sample was incinerated in a laboratory oven (typically at 550 °C or 900 °C, see international standards ISO 2171 and ICC 104/1). This is an easily verified indicator for the fraction of the whole grain that ended up in the flour, because the mineral content of the starchy endosperm is much lower than that of the outer parts of the grain. Flour made from all parts of the grain (extraction rate: 100%) leaves about 2 g ash or more per 100 g dry flour. Plain white flour (extraction rate: 50–60%) leaves only about 0.4 g.

German flour type numbers (Mehltype) indicate the amount of ash (measured in milligrams) obtained from 100 g of the dry mass of this flour. Standard wheat flours (defined in DIN 10355) range from type 405 for normal white wheat flour for baking, to strong bread flour types 550, 650, 812, and the darker types 1050 and 1600 for wholegrain breads.
French flour type numbers (type de farine) are a factor 10 smaller than those used in Germany, because they indicate the ash content (in milligrams) per 10 g flour. Type 55 is the standard, hard-wheat white flour for baking, including puff pastries ("pâte feuilletée"). Type 45 is often called pastry flour, but is generally from a softer wheat. Types 65, 80, and 110 are strong bread flours of increasing darkness, and type 150 is a wholemeal flour.

In the United States and the United Kingdom, no numbered standardized flour types are defined, and the ash mass is only rarely given on the label by flour manufacturers. However, the legally required standard nutrition label specifies the protein content of the flour, which is also a suitable way for comparing the extraction rates of different available flour types.

It is possible to find out ash content from some US manufacturers. However, US measurements are based on wheat with a 14% moisture content. Thus, a US flour with .48 ash would approximate a French Type 55. For US bakers of French pastry seeking an equivalent, for example, they could look at tables published by King Arthur Flour, showing their all-purpose flour is a close equivalent to French Type 55.

In general, as the extraction rate of the flour increases, so do both the protein and the ash content. However, as the extraction rate approaches 100% (whole meal), the protein content drops slightly, while the ash content continues to rise.

The following table shows some typical examples of how protein and ash content relate to each other in wheat flour:

Ash	Protein	Wheat flour type
Ash	Protein	US	German	French
~0.4%	~9%	pastry flour	405	45
~0.55%	~11%	all-purpose flour	550	55
~0.8%	~14%	high gluten flour	812	80
~1%	~15%	first clear flour	1050	110
>1.5%	~13%	white whole wheat	1600	150

This table is only a rough guideline for converting bread recipes. Since flour types are not standardized in many countries, the numbers may differ between manufacturers.

Production

Milling of flour is accomplished by grinding grain between stones or steel wheels. Today, "stone-ground" usually means that the grain has been ground in a mill in which a revolving stone wheel turns over a stationary stone wheel, vertically or horizontally with the grain in between. Many small appliance mills are available, both hand-cranked and electric. The mill stones frequently rub against each other resulting in small stone particles chipping off and getting into flour. Safety aspect of this has not been checked but research into the dentition of medieval skeletons indicates that this form of milling leads to excessive wear on teeth. Steel roller mills do not have this problem.^{[citation needed]}

Flammability

Flour dust suspended in air is explosive, as is any mixture of a finely powdered flammable substance with air,^[4] see Flour Bomb. In medieval flour mills, candles, lamps, or other sources of fire were forbidden. Some devastating and fatal explosions have occurred at flour mills, including an explosion in 1878 at the Washburn "A" Mill in Minneapolis, the largest flour mill in the United States at the time.^[5]

Products

Bread, pasta, crackers, many cakes, and many other foods are made using flour. Wheat flour is also used to make a roux as a base for gravy and sauces. White wheat flour is the traditional base for wallpaper paste. It is also the base for papier-mâché. Cornstarch is a principal ingredient of many puddings or desserts.

Dough

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 14:06:54 +0100

Dough

Rolling of atta dough during the preparation of chapati.

Dough is a paste made out of any cereals (grains) or leguminous crops by mixing the flour with a small amount of water. This step is a precursor to making bread, pasta, noodles, tortillas, crusts, dumplings, pastry, cookies, and muffins.

In many parts of central India, people use the quick method of making an instant roasted dough ball or baati. In countries in the Sahel, ground and boiled dough balls (made from sorghum or millet) are called aiysh or biya. Unlike in India, they are thus not roasted.^[1]

Flat unleavened breads known as roti, lavash, yufka, matzo or matzah, lafa, and tortilla are used in many parts of the world today.

Leavened or fermented dough, made from dry ground grain cereals or legumes mixed with water and yeast are in use all over the world. Salt, sugar and eggs are all common ingredients in dough. These includes all kinds of breads made from wheat, maize, rice and other cereals or similar crops used today in the world.

Fried dough foods are also common in many cultures.

Additional definition

Dough and bread can also mean money, as in "fork over the dough." This meaning presumably refers to the fact that money has historically provided the means to have enough to eat, and bread has historically been a staple in Europe, where this usage arose.

Salt dough, a variant consisting of 1 cup flour, 1 cup salt and 1/2 cup water, can be used as a toy for molding.[1] Such a recipe is the basis for Play-Doh.

Trivia

Dough is usually a non-Newtonian fluid, which is relevant for kneading and kneading machines.

Shortening

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 10:45:02 +0100

Shortening

Strutto, or clarified pork fat, a type of shortening common in Italy.

Shortening is a semisolid fat used in food preparation, especially baked goods, and is so called because it promotes a "short" or crumbly texture (as in shortbread). Shortening is basically just fat or lard from an animal or vegetable. The term "shortening" can be used more broadly to apply to any fat that is used for baking and which is solid at room temperature, such as butter, lard, or margarine. Shortening often has a higher smoke point than butter and margarine, and it has 100% fat content, compared to about 80% for butter and margarine.

Although the term has been in use for many years, it is now known that shortening works by inhibiting the formation of long protein (gluten) strands in wheat-based doughs. The similarity in terms is entirely coincidental since full understanding of the structure and chemistry of dough is comparatively recent.

Vegetable Shortening

A 1918 advertisement for shortening.

Crisco, a popular brand in the USA, was first produced in 1911. In Ireland and the UK Cookeen is a popular brand. While similar to animal derived shortening such as butter or lard, it is cheaper to produce; originally, lard was far cheaper and edible oils came at a higher cost. Shortening also needs no refrigeration, which further lowers its costs and increases its convenience. As a substitute for butter, it can lengthen the shelf life of baked goods and other foods. With these advantages, vegetable shortening gained popularity, as food production became increasingly industrialized and manufacturers sought low-cost raw materials. Vast surpluses of cottonseed oil, corn oil, and soy beans helped found a market in low-cost vegetable shortening.

Health concerns and reformulation

Vegetable shortening has become the subject of some health concerns due to its traditional formulation from partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, which contain trans fat. Trans fats have been linked to a number of adverse health effects. Usage of shortening lacking trans fats has grown, notably with the 2007 reformulation of Crisco such that it contains less than 1g of trans fat per 12g serving. Cookeen was also reformulated in autumn 2006 to remove trans fats^[1].

References

^ The Guardian: Grease is the Word, Guardian Unlimited, 27 September 2006

Bibliography

William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi, 2007. "History of Soy Oil Shortening: A Special Report on The History of Soy Oil, Soybean Meal, & Modern Soy Protein Products," from the unpublished manuscript, History of Soybeans and Soy foods: 1100 B.C. to the 1980s. Lafayette, CA (US): Soyinfo Center.[1]

Edible fats and oils

Fats	Bacon fat • Butter • Clarified butter • Cocoa butter • Dripping • Duck fat • Ghee • Lard • Margarine • Niter kibbeh • Oily fish • Salo • Schmaltz • Shea butter • Smen • Suet • Tallow • Vegetable shortening

Oils	Almond oil • Argan oil • Avocado oil • Canola oil • Cashew oil • Castor oil • Coconut oil • Colza oil • Corn oil • Cottonseed oil • Grape seed oil • Hazelnut oil • Hemp oil • Linseed oil (flaxseed oil) • Macadamia oil • Marula oil • Mongongo nut oil • Mustard oil • Olive oil • Palm oil (palm kernel oil) • Peanut oil • Pecan oil • Perilla oil • Pine nut oil • Pistachio oil • Poppyseed oil • Pumpkin seed oil • Rapeseed oil • Rice bran oil • Safflower oil • Sesame oil • Soybean oil • Sunflower oil • Tea seed oil • Walnut oil • Watermelon seed oil

Pastry

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 06:30:27 +0100

Pastry

Blackberry Pie

Pastry is the name given to various kinds of baked goods made from ingredients such as flour, butter, shortening, baking powder or eggs. Small cakes, tarts and other sweet baked goods are called "pastries".

Pastry may also refer to the dough from which such baked goods are made. Pastry dough is rolled out thinly and used as a base for baked goods. Common pastry dishes include pies, tarts and quiches.^[1]^[2].

Pastry is distinguished from bread by having a higher fat content, which contributes to a flaky or crumbly texture. A good pastry is light and airy and fatty, but firm enough to support the weight of the filling. When making a shortcrust pastry, care must be taken to blend the fat and flour thoroughly before adding any liquid. This ensures that the flour granules are adequately coated with fat and less likely to develop gluten. On the other hand, overmixing results in long gluten strands that toughen the pastry. In other types of pastry, such as Danish pastry and croissants, the characteristic flaky texture is achieved by repeatedly rolling out a dough similar to that for yeast bread, spreading it with butter, and folding it to produce many thin layers of folds.

Many pie recipes involve blind-baking the pastry before the filling is added. Pastry dough may be sweetened or perhaps unsweetened.

Main types of pastry

Strudel, a flaky pastry

Pecan and maple Danish pastry, a puff pastry type

Profiterole, a choux pastry

Shortcrust pastry: The shortcrust, or short, pastry is the simplest and most common pastry made. It is made with the ingredients of flour, fat, salt, and water. The process of making pastry include mixing of the fat and flour, adding water, and rolling out the paste. It is cooked at 180°C and the result is a soft, tender pastry. A related type is the sweetened sweetcrust pastry.
Flaky (or rough puff) pastry: The flaky pastry is a simple pastry that expands when cooked due to amount of layers. These are perfect if you are looking for a crisp, buttery pastry. The “puff” is obtained by beginning the baking process with a high temperature and lowering the temperature to finish.
Puff pastry: The puff pastry has many layers that causes it to expand or “puff” when being baked. Pastries are made using flour, butter, salt, and water. It rises up due to the combination and reaction of the four ingredients and also from the good amount of air that gets between the layers. Puff pastries come out of the oven light, flaky, and tender.
Choux pastry: The choux pastry is a very light pastry that is filled with cream. The pastry is filled with various flavors of cream and is often topped with chocolate. Choux pastries can also be filled with things like cheese, tuna, or chicken to be used as appetizers.
Phyllo (filo) pastry: Phyllo pastries are usually paper-thin and greatly stretched. They involve several stretched out layers and are wrapped around a filling and brushed with butter. These pastries are very delicate and can break easily.^[3]

Background

Pastries go back to the ancient Mediterranean almost paper-thin multi-layered baklava and filo. Medieval Europe took on pastry making after the Crusaders brought it back. French and Italian Renaissance chefs eventually perfected the Puff and Choux pastries, while 17th and 18th century chefs brought new recipes to the table.^[4] These new pastries included brioche, Napoleons, cream puffs, and éclairs. French chef Antonin Careme reportedly was the first to incorporate art in pastry making. ^[5]

Definitions

Red Velvet Cake with pastry cream

Pastry: A mixture of flour, fat, possibly egg and sugar, the fat usually dispersed as small solid globules coated with flour and the whole brought together with liquid prior to shaping and baking. There are many types of pastry.
Pastry board: A square or oblong board preferably marble but usually wood on which pastry is rolled out.
Pastry brake: Opposed and contra-rotating rollers with a variable gap through which pastry can be worked and reduced in thickness for commercial production. A very small version is used domestically for pasta production.
Pastry case: An uncooked or blind baked pastry container used to hold savory or sweet mixtures.
Pastry cream: Confectioner's custard. An egg and flour thickened custard made with sweetened milk flavored with vanilla. Used as a filling for flans, cakes, pastries, tarts, etc. The flour prevents the egg from curdling.
Pastry cutters: Various metal or plastic outlines of shapes, e.g. circles fluted circles, diamonds, ginger bread men, etc. Sharpened on one edge and used to cut out corresponding shapes from biscuit, scone, pastry, or cakes mixtures.

^[6]

Physics and chemistry of a pastry

Different kinds of pastries are made by the nature of wheat flour and also due to certain types of fats. When wheat flour is kneaded into plain dough and made with water it develops strands of gluten, which are what make the bread tough and elastic. In a typical pastry, however, this toughness is unwanted so fat or oil is put in to slow down the development of gluten. It is common to use lard or suet here because they have a coarse, crystalline structure that is very effective. Using only unclarified butter does not always work well because of its water content; clarified butter is virtually water free. Shortcrust pastry using only butter may develops an inferior texture. If the fat is melted with hot water, or if liquid oil is used, the thin oily layer between the grains offers less obstacle to gluten formation and the resulting pastry is tougher. In hot water pastry, liquid oil or melted fat is used, the layer or oil between the grains makes it easier for gluten to form, making the pastry tougher.^[7]

History

A typical Mediterranean baklava, a phyllo dough pastry sweetened with syrup

Shop selling pastries in Syria

European traditions of pastry-making is often^{[citation needed]} traced back to the short crust era flaky doughs that were in use throughout the Mediterranean in ancient times. These recipes were popularized in Western Europe by Crusaders returning home.

In the Mediterranean, the Romans, Greeks and Phoenicians all had filo-style pastries in their culinary traditions. There is also strong evidence that the ancient Egyptians produced pastry-like confections. It is very possible that Egyptians made and ate pastries. They had professional bakers that surely had to skills to do so, and they also the needed materials like flour oil and honey. In the plays of Aristophanes, in 5th century BC, there are mentions of sweetmeats including small pastries filled with fruit. The Romans used flour, oil and water to make pastries that they used to cover meats and fowls. They did this during baking to keep in the juices, but this was not meant to be eaten by people. A pastry that was meant to be eaten was a richer pastry that was made into small pastries and contained eggs or little birds. It was often served at banquets. Greeks and Roman both struggled in making a good pastry because of the fact that they both used oil and the cooking process and oil causes the pastry to lose its stiffness.^[8]

In medieval North Europe they were able to produce nice, stiff pastries because they cooked with lard and butter. There were some incomplete lists of ingredients found in medieval cookbooks, but no full, detailed versions. There were stiff, empty pastries called coffins that were made for servants only and included an egg yolk glaze to help make them more enjoyable to consume. Medieval pastries also included small tarts to add richness to the snack. In was not until about the Mid 16th century until actual pastries recipes showed up.^[9] ^[10] These recipes were adopted and adapted over time in various European countries, resulting in the myriad of pastry traditions known to the region, from Portuguese "pastéis de nata" in the west to Russian "pirozhky" in the east. The use of chocolate in pastry-making in the West, so commonplace today, arose only after Spanish and Portuguese traders brought chocolate to Europe from the New World starting in the 1500s. Many culinary historians consider French pastry chef Antonin Carème (1784-1833) to have been the first great master of pastry making in modern times. Pastry-making also has a strong tradition in many parts of Asia. Chinese pastry is made from rice, or different types of flour, with fruit, sweet bean paste or sesame-based fillings. Since the 19th century, the British brought western-style pastry to the far east. Though it would be the French influenced Maxim in the 1950s that made western pastry popular in Chinese-speaking regions starting with Hong Kong. Still, the term "Western Cake" (西餅) is used to differentiate between the automatically assumed Chinese pastry. Other Asian countries such as Korea have traditionally prepared pastry-confections such as tteok, hangwa, yaksi, among others with flour, rice, fruits, and regional specific ingredients to make unique type desserts. And Japan also has specialized pastry-confections better known as mochi and manju. Pastry-confection that have their origins from Asia are clearly distinct from the western pastry-confections that are generally much sweeter to the palate.

Pastry chef

Pastry chef with choux pastry pyramid

Those who make pastries professionally are known as either bakers or pastry chefs, depending on whether they produce pastries for a bakery or a restaurant. Pastry chefs use a combination of culinary ability and creativity in baking, decoration, and flavoring with ingredients. Many baked goods require a lot of time and focus. Presentation is an important part of pastry and dessert preparation. The job is often physically demanding job that requires lots of work with your hands and long hours on your feet and can be stressful with hours that start in the early morning.^[11] They are also responsible for creating new recipes to put on the menu. Pastry chefs work in restaurants, bistros, large hotels, casinos and bakeries. Pastry baking is usually held in a slightly separate part from the main kitchen. This section of the kitchen is in charge of making pastries, desserts, and other baked goods.^[12]

Gallery

index

Bread

Bread

Contents

Etymology

History

Cultural and political importance of bread

Types

Quick breads

Composition and chemistry

Formulation

Flour

Liquids

Leavening

Chemical leavening

Yeast leavening

Sourdough

Steam leavening

Bacterial leavening

Aeration

Fats or shortenings

Flour

Flour

Contents

Etymology

Degerminated and heat processed flour

Types

Wheat flour

Other flours

Flour type numbers

Production

Flammability

Products

Dough

Dough

Contents

Trivia

Shortening

Shortening

Contents

Vegetable Shortening

Health concerns and reformulation

References

Bibliography

Pastry

Pastry

Contents

Background

Definitions

Physics and chemistry of a pastry

History

Pastry chef

Gallery