CORDILLERA QUEST

Center for Complementary Education and Social Work Services, Inc.

IC-15 Betag, Km.6, La Trinidad, Benguet, Philippines
Tel/Fax (074) 422-6322/ Email Add: cordilleraquest@yahoo.com

BREAD AND PASTRY PRODUCTION

Baking-process of cooking by dry heat, especially in some kind of oven. It is probably the oldest
cooking method. Bakery products, which include bread, rolls, cookies, pies, pastries, and
muffins, are usually prepared from flour or meal derived from some form of grain. Bread,
already a common staple in prehistoric times, provides many nutrients in the human diet.

HISTORY
The earliest processing of cereal grains probably involved parching or dry roasting of collected
grain seeds. Flavor, texture, and digestibility were later improved by cooking whole or broken
grains with water, forming gruel or porridge. It was a short step to the baking of a layer of
viscous gruel on a hot stone, producing primitive flat bread. More sophisticated versions of flat
bread include the Mexican tortilla, made of processed corn, and the chapati of India, usually
made of wheat.
Baking techniques improved with the development of an enclosed baking utensil and then of
ovens, making possible thicker baked cakes or loaves. The phenomenon of fermentation, with
the resultant lightening of the loaf structure and development of appealing flavors, was probably
first observed when doughs or gruels, held for several hours before baking, exhibited spoilage
caused by yeasts. Some of the effects of the microbiologically induced changes were regarded as
desirable, and a gradual acquisition of control over the process led to traditional methods for
making leavened bread loaves. Early baked products were made of mixed seeds with a
predominance of barley, but wheat flour, because of its superior response to fermentation,
eventually became the preferred cereal among the various cultural groups sufficiently advanced
in culinary techniques to make leavened bread.

Brewing and baking were closely connected in early civilizations. Fermentation of a thick gruel
resulted in a dough suitable for baking; a thinner mash produced a kind of beer. Both techniques
required knowledge of the “mysteries” of fermentation and a supply of grain. Increasing
knowledge and experience taught the artisans in the baking and brewing trades that barley was
best suited to brewing, while wheat was best for baking.

By 2600 BCE the Egyptians, credited with the first intentional use of leavening, were making
bread by methods similar in principle to those of today. They maintained stocks of sour dough, a
crude culture of desirable fermentation organisms, and used portions of this material to inoculate
fresh doughs. With doughs made by mixing flour, water, salt, and leaven, the Egyptian baking
industry eventually developed more than 50 varieties of bread, varying the shape and using such
flavoring materials as poppy seed, sesame, and camphor. Samples found in tombs are flatter and
coarser than modern bread.
The Egyptians developed the first ovens. The earliest known examples are cylindrical vessels
made of baked Nile clay, tapered at the top to give a cone shape and divided inside by a
horizontal shelf like partition. The lower section is the firebox, the upper section is the baking
chamber. The pieces of dough were placed in the baking chamber through a hole provided in the
top.

In the first two or three centuries after the founding of Rome, baking remained a domestic skill
with few changes in equipment or processing methods. According to Pliny the Elder, there were
no bakers in Rome until the middle of the 2nd century BCE. As well-to-do families increased,
women wishing to avoid frequent and tedious bread making began to patronize professional
bakers, usually freed slaves. Loaves molded by hand into a spheroidal shape, generally weighing
about a pound, were baked in a beehive-shaped oven fired by wood. Panis artopticius was a
variety cooked on a spit, panis testuatis in an earthen vessel.

Although Roman professional bakers introduced technological improvements, many were of

minor importance, and some were essentially reintroductions of earlier developments. The first
mechanical dough mixer, attributed to Marcus Virgilius Euryasaces, a freed slave of Greek
origin, consisted of a large stone basin in which wooden paddles, powered by a horse or donkey
walking in circles, kneaded the dough mixture of flour, leaven, and water.

Guilds formed by the miller-bakers of Rome became institutionalized. During the 2nd

century CE, under the Flavians, they were organized into a “college” with work rules and
regulations prescribed by government officials. The trade eventually became obligatory and
hereditary, and the baker became a kind of civil servant with limited freedom of action.

During the early Middle Ages, baking technology advances of preceding centuries disappeared,
and bakers reverted to mechanical devices used by the ancient Egyptians and to more backward
practices. But in the later Middle Ages the institution of guilds was revived and expanded.
Several years of apprenticeship were necessary before an applicant was admitted to the guild;
often an intermediate status as journeyman intervened between apprenticeship and full
membership (master). The rise of the bakers’ guilds reflected significant advances in technique.
A 13th-century French writer named 20 varieties of bread varying in shape, flavorings,
preparation method, and quality of the meal used. Guild regulations strictly governed size and
quality. But outside the cities bread was usually baked in the home. In medieval England rye was
the main ingredient of bread consumed by the poor; it was frequently diluted with meal made
from other cereals or leguminous seeds. Not until about 1865 did the cost of white bread in
England drop below brown bread.

At that time improvements in baking technology began to accelerate rapidly, owing to the higher
level of technology generally. Ingredients of greater purity and improved functional qualities
were developed, along with equipment reducing the need for individual skill and eliminating
hand manipulation of bread doughs. Automation of mixing, transferring, shaping, fermentation,
and baking processes began to replace batch processing with continuous operations. The
enrichment of bread and other bakery foods with vitamins and minerals was a major
accomplishment of the mid-20th-century baking industry.
Ingredients
Flour, water, and leavening agents are the ingredients primarily responsible for the characteristic
appearance, texture, and flavor of most bakery products. Eggs, milk, salt, shortening,
and sugar are effective in modifying these qualities, and various minor ingredients may also be
used.
BAKING
Flour
Wheat flour is unique among cereal flours in that, when mixed with water in the correct
proportions, its protein component forms an elastic network capable of holding gas and
developing a firm spongy structure when baked. The proteinaceous substances contributing these
properties are known collectively as gluten. The suitability of a flour for a given purpose is
determined by the type and amount of its gluten content. Those characteristics are controlled by
the genetic constitution and growing conditions of the wheat from which the flour was milled, as
well as the milling treatment applied.
Low-protein, soft-wheat flour is appropriate for cakes, pie crusts, cookies (sweet biscuits), and
other products not requiring great expansion and elastic structure. High-protein, hard-wheat flour
is adapted to bread, hard rolls, soda crackers, and Danish pastry, all requiring elastic dough and
often expanded to low densities by the leavening action.

Leavening agents
Pie doughs and similar products are usually unleavened, but most bakery products are leavened,
or aerated, by gas bubbles developed naturally or folded in. Leavening may result from yeast or
bacterial fermentation, from chemical reactions, or from the distribution in the batter of
atmospheric or injected gases.

Yeast
All commercial breads, except salt-rising types and some rye bread, are leavened with bakers’
yeast, composed of living cells of the yeast strain Saccharomyces cerevisiae. A typical yeast
addition level might be 2 percent of the dough weight. Bakeries receive yeast in the form
of compressed cakes containing about 70 percent water or as dry granules containing about 8
percent water. Dry yeast, more resistant to storage deterioration than compressed yeast, requires
rehydration before it is added to the other ingredients. “Cream” yeast, a commercial variety of
bakers’ yeast made into a fluid by the addition of extra water, is more convenient to dispense and
mix than compressed yeast, but it also has a shorter storage life and requires additional
equipment for handling.
Bakers’ yeast performs its leavening function by fermenting such sugars as glucose, fructose,
maltose, and sucrose. It cannot use lactose, the predominant sugar of milk, or certain
other carbohydrates. The principal products of fermentation are carbon dioxide, the leavening
agent, and ethanol, an important component of the aroma of freshly baked bread. Other yeast
activity products also flavour the baked product and change the dough’s physical properties.
The rate at which gas is evolved by yeast during the various stages of dough preparation is
important to the success of bread manufacture. Gas production is partially governed by the rate at
which fermentable carbohydrates become available to the yeast. The sugars naturally present in
the flour and the initial stock of added sugar are rapidly exhausted. A relatively quiescent period
follows, during which the yeast cells become adapted to the use of maltose, a sugar constantly
being produced in the dough by the action of diastatic enzymes on starch. The rate of yeast
activity is also governed by temperature and osmotic pressure, the latter primarily a function of
the water content and salt concentration.

Baking soda
Layer cakes, cookies (sweet biscuits), biscuits, and many other bakery products are leavened
by carbon dioxide from added sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). Added without offsetting
amounts of an acidic substance, sodium bicarbonate tends to make dough alkaline, causing flavor
deterioration and discoloration and slowing carbon dioxide release. Addition of an acid-reacting
substance promotes vigorous gas evolution and maintains dough acidity within a favorable
range.
Carbon dioxide produced from sodium bicarbonate is initially in dissolved or combined form.
The rate of gas release affects the size of the bubbles produced in the dough, consequently
influencing the grain, volume, and texture of the finished product. Much research has been
devoted to the development of leavening acids capable of maintaining the rate of gas release
within the desired range. Acids such as acetic, from vinegar, or lactic, from sour milk, usually act
too quickly; satisfactory compounds include cream of tartar (potassium acid tartrate), sodium
aluminum sulfate (alum), sodium acid pyrophosphate, and various forms of calcium phosphate.

Baking powder
Instead of adding soda and leavening acids separately, most commercial bakeries and domestic
bakers use baking powder, a mixture of soda and acids in appropriate amounts and with such
added diluents as starch, simplifying measuring and improving stability. The end products of
baking-powder reaction are carbon dioxide and some blandly flavoured harmless salts. All
baking powders meeting basic standards have virtually identical amounts of available carbon
dioxide, differing only in reaction time. Most commercial baking powders are of the double-
acting type, giving off a small amount of available carbon dioxide during the mixing and makeup
stages, then remaining relatively inert until baking raises the batter temperature. This type of
action eliminates excessive loss of leavening gas, which may occur in batter left in an unbaked
condition for long periods.

Entrapped air and vapor
Angel food cakes, sponge cakes, and similar products are customarily prepared without either
yeast or chemical leaveners. Instead, they are leavened by air entrapped in the product through
vigorous beating. This method requires a readily foaming ingredient capable of retaining the air
bubbles, such as egg whites. To produce a cake of fine and uniform internal structure, the
pockets of air folded in during beating are rapidly subdivided into small bubbles with such
mixing utensils as wire whips, or whisks.
The vaporization of volatile fluids (e.g., ethanol) under the influence of oven heat can have a
leavening effect. Water-vapor pressure, too low to be significant at normal temperatures, exerts
substantial pressure on the interior walls of bubbles already formed by other means as the
interior of the loaf or cake approaches the boiling point. The expansion of such puff pastry as
used for napoleons (rich desserts of puff pastry layers and whipped cream or custard) and vol-au-
vents (puff pastry shells filled with meat, fowl, fish, or other mixtures) is entirely due to water-
vapor pressure
.
PRINCIPLES OF BAKING

Understanding the science of mixing fat, flour and water to make a finished product
makes for a well-rounded professional.
Flour, sugar, eggs, milk, butter, flavoring - with this simple list of ingredients you can
produce a seemingly endless variety of goods, from breads to sauces to pastries.
Accurate measurements are critical in the bakeshop. Following formulas carefully and
completely is important.

6 important ingredients in baking

1. Flour
2. Liquid
3. Sugar
4. Egg
5. leavening agent
6. shortening
Flour-provides main structure of baked products
Gluten-provided protein of flour for stretching property
Wheat flour-commonly used flour by bakers because of high gluten content and most available
flour in market
Bread flour-best for yeast breads
All-purpose/family flour-used to make breads but not cakes when bread flour is not present
Condensed milk-sweetened evaporated milk with added 40% sucrose
Cake flour-used for baking cakes because of low gluten content which makes the bread light and
tender

LEAVENING AGENT
-aerates flour mixture which contributes to the volume and texture of cake
Air-added while mixing/ beating
Pastry flour-falls between cake flour and all-purpose flour
Water + flour =?-gluten is formed due to hydration of wheat proteins
Liquid-hydrates flour for gluten development
7 TYPES OF MILK
-raw, whole, pasteurized, skimmed, sterilized, evaporized, condensed
Whole milk-nothing removed or added to milk
Raw milk-untreated milk
Pasteurized milk-milk heated to be free from pathogenic microorganisms
Sterilized milk-milk heated to UHT to kill all microorganisms
Skimmed milk-milk with fat partly or completely removed
Carbon dioxide-produced by the reaction of yeast on sugar

4 types of flour
1. all-purpose/family
2. Cake
3. Pastry
4. Bread

SHORTENING
-contributes to tenderness, richness, flavor
3 properties of fats
1. smoke point
2. plasticity
3. rancidity
Smoke point-temperature which fat becomes overheated
Acrolein-by-product when fat is overheated
Plasticity-property of fat to be molded and hold its shape
Rancidity-spoilage of fats

SUGAR
-contributes to tenderness and golden brown color due to caramelization
Hygroscopic property-property which helps sugar retains moisture of product
Substrate-sugar acts as this for the yeast

5 market forms of sugar

1. granulated
2. brown
3. confectioner
4. molasses
5. syrup
Granulated sugar-white/refined sugar
Brown sugar-more moisture than white sugar
Confectioner sugar-powdered sugar
Molasses-viscous by-product of sugar cane processing into sugar
Egg-provides structure, prevents crumbling
Egg protein-gives gel strength and provides firm body
Foaming agent-property to hold air
Emulsifiers-mayonnaise process
Binding agent-bind and hold together food ingredients

FLOUR MIXTURES
-food products in which the main ingredient is flour to which liquid and other ingredients
are added

2 types of flour mixture

1. dough
2. batter

BATTER-mixture that is still liquid in consistency and can be poured

2 types of batter
1. pour
2. drop
Pour batter-1:1 liquid to flour ratio
Drop batter-1:2 liquids to flour ratio

DOUGH
-flour mixture that is solid in consistency
2 types of dough
1. soft
2. stiff
Soft dough-1:3 liquids to flour ratio
Stiff dough-1:4 liquids to flour ratio

3 basic types of baked products

1. Bread
2. Pastries
3. Cakes

Two types of breads

1. quick
2. yeast
Quick bread-requires little manipulation; leavened with chemical leaveners

2 methods of mixing ingredients of quick breads

 1. muffin
2. biscuit
Muffin method-liquid in one bowl, solid in other bowl, then mix
Biscuit method-all ingredients mix in one bowl
Yeast bread-longer mixing and kneading time; use yeast as leavening agent
Pastries-baked flour products that have higher fat content
Cakes-require exact measuring, mixing, baking temperature

Two basic kinds of cakes

1. shortened
2. foam-style
Shortened cakes -cake that contain fat
Foam-style cakes -cake that does not contain fat
8 minutes -kneading of yeast dough
Toughen the pie crust -pie with too much water
More egg white -more air, larger volume of foam
Greased -baking pan for shortened cake
Ungreased -baking pan for foam-style cake
10 minutes -time cooled shortened cake
2 hours -time cooled foam-style cake

Two components of gluten

1. glutanin
2. gliadin
Evaporated milk-milk where 50 - 60% water is removed
Glutanin-makes the structure of bread
Foam-from beaten egg whites
Gliadin-makes gluten softer

Cake is done if: (3 things)

-toothpick stuck in cake's center comes out clean, cake springs back when lightly pressed
with finger, cake start to pull away from pan
350 - 375 °F-average range of cooking temperature Fahrenheit
176 - 190 °C-average range of cooking temperature Celsius
High temperature-tunnel formed, tough product, shrunk edges, poor volume
Low temperature-coarse texture, low volume, cake with sunken center

BAKING TERMINOLOGIES

Many people say that they cook, but they don't bake. Baking is a science and can seem foreign or
confusing and it definitely has a language all of its own. Use this collection of short definitions as a
quick reference to help you decode recipes.

 All-purpose flour: Wheat flour with a medium gluten content of around 12 percent or so. Can be
used for a whole range of baking, from crusty bread to cookies to fine cakes and pastries.
 Autolyze: In bread baking, combining the flour and water before adding other ingredients and
before kneading. 
 Bake: Cook with dry, radiant heat in an oven.
 Bar: A type of cookie made by pressing dough into a pan, baking, then cutting into squares.
 Batter: A mixture of flour, eggs, dairy, or other ingredients that is liquid enough to pour.
 Beat: Stir together very rapidly in order to incorporate air. This can be achieved with a fork,
whisk, electric mixer, or food processor.
 Biscuit method: Technique for blending cold fat into flour so that it achieves a flaky texture, like
biscuits and scones.
 Blend: Stir ingredients together until well mixed.
 Bread flour: Wheat flour with a relatively high gluten content, usually around 13 to 14 percent,
and used for making crusty bread and rolls, pizza doughs and similar products.
 Buttercream: The most common type of frosting, made by combining a type of fat (usually
butter) with sugar. 
 Cake flour: wheat flour with lower gluten content, around 7.5 to 9 percent. Its fine, soft texture
makes it preferable for tender cakes and pastries.
 Caramelization: The chemical process that causes sugars and starches to turn brown when
heated.
 Chemical leavener: An ingredient such as baking powder or baking soda that uses a chemical
reaction to produce gas that causes baked goods to rise. 
 Combine: Stir ingredients together just until mixed.
 Confectioners' sugar: White sugar that has been ground to a very fine powder. It dissolves easily,
and is used extensively in candy making, for making frostings and icings, and for decorating or
dusting the tops of cakes and other desserts.
 Cream: Beat together sugar and butter until a light, creamy texture and color have been achieved.
This method adds air to the batter, which helps the leavening process. Sometimes eggs are also
added during the creaming step.
 Crumb: The pattern of air holes in the structure of a baked bread or cake.
 Cut In: Incorporating butter (or another solid fat) into flour just until the fat is in small, granular
pieces resembling coarse sand. This is achieved by using two knives in a cross-cutting motion,
forks, or a special pastry cutter.
 Drizzle: Pour a thin stream of a liquid on top of something.
 Dust: Coat the surface of something with a light sprinkling of a dry substance (flour, sugar,
cocoa powder, etc.).
 Fermentation: The process in which yeast consumes starches and sugars in bread dough and
produce CO2 gas and alcohol.
 Fold: Gently combine two substances in an effort to not deflate a delicate, lofty texture. Using a
spatula, fold the bottom of the bowl up and over the top, turn the bowl 90 degrees, fold again,
and repeat the process until combined.
 Flaky pie dough: Pie dough made with bigger globs of shortening, usually around the size of
peas or hazelnuts, used for top crusts and prebaked pie shells.
 Fondant: A candy paste that can be used to make candies and for covering cakes. 
 Ganache: A type of frosting made from melted chocolate and heavy cream.
 Gelatinization: The chemical process that causes starches to expand and absorb water when
heated. 
 Germ: The embryo of a seed of a cereal grain, containing protein, nutrients and fats.
 Glaze: Coat with a thick, sugar-based sauce.
 Gluten: Proteins in wheat flour that give baked goods their structure and texture.
 Grease: Coat the inside of a baking dish or pan with a fatty substance (oil, butter, lard) to prevent
sticking.
 Hydration: The ratio of water to flour in bread. Higher or lower hydration results in different
dough consistencies. 
 Knead: Combine dough by hand on a hard surface. This involves folding the dough over,
pressing down, turning 90 degrees and then repeating the process. Kneading mixes, the dough as
well as developing gluten strands that give strength to breads and other baked goods.
 Levain: A mixture of flour and water that is allowed to ferment before adding it to the main
dough. Also known as sourdough starter.
 Leavening: An ingredient such as yeast, baking powder or baking soda that produces gas causing
baked goods to rise.
 Lukewarm: Slightly warm, or around 105 degrees Fahrenheit.
 Mealy pie dough: A pie dough made using smaller globs of shortening, resembling cornmeal.
Mealy crusts are used for the bottoms of fruit or custard pies since they don't get as soggy as
flaky ones.
 Milk chocolate: A type of chocolate made from cocoa butter, sugar and milk solids. 
 Muffin method: A mixing technique where dry ingredients are combined with liquid ones,
including liquid fats.
 Natural starter: Sourdough starter or levain.
 Oven spring: The quick initial rise of baked goods triggered by the heat of the oven.
 Pastry flour: Soft wheat flour with around 9 to 10 percent gluten, used for biscuits, muffins,
cookies, pie doughs, and softer yeast doughs.
 Pre-ferment: A fermented dough or batter, such as a sourdough starter, added to a dough to
provide leavening. 
 Proof: Allowing bread dough to rise or yeast to activate.
 Retarding: Chilling dough to slow its fermentation, for the purpose of increasing flavor and
color.
 Royal icing: A hard, brittle icing used for decorating cakes and cookies.
 Scald: To heat a liquid such as milk to near boiling.
 Score: Cut lines or slits into something.
 Shortening: Any type of fat added to a baking recipe. Fat interferes with the formation of long
gluten strands, literally shortening the strands and producing a crumbly texture. 
 Soft Peaks: Egg whites or cream that has been whipped to the point at which a peak will bend or
slump over to one side. To create a peak, pull the whisk or beater straight up and out of the foam.
 Stiff Peaks: Egg whites or cream that has been whipped to the point at which a peak will stand
completely erect. To create a peak, pull the whisk or beater straight up and out of the foam.
 Sourdough: bread leavened by a natural starter.
 Sourdough starter: A natural starter, aka levain or pre-ferment.
 Tunneling: A large air gap between the crust and the crumb of a loaf of bread usually caused by
letting the dough rise for too long before baking. 
 Whisk: A kitchen tool made of wire loops that tend to add air as it mixes substances together.
 Whole wheat flour: Wheat flour made from whole wheat grain, providing more fiber and other
nutrients than all-purpose flour. 
 Yeast: A microorganism that consumes sugars and starches and produces CO2 gas which causes
bread to rise.