What Is Bread?
Not Quite Everything You Need To Know About Bread
What we know as bread can actually come in many different shapes, sizes and flavors and often what we think of as cake may actually be bread. How can this be? There are many ways of making bread but they are all based on the same principle of making a dough and then usually adding yeast to make it rise As you learn more about the different features and characteristics of dough based foods you will find yourself able to make better quality products. Here we look at bread and see if we can add our own special touches to create a special taste and design.
What is Bread?
Bread is a basic food prepared by cooking a mixture of dough made of flour and water with salt. In the West we usually bake the dough but other cuisines frequently fry, steam or bake the bread dough on a hot skillet. It may be unleavened or leavened too which means it has had yeast added and allowed to rise.
Salt, flour, fat and yeast are the basic ingredients of bread recipes but bread may have other ingredients such as eggs, sugar, milk, spice, fruit like raisins, nuts, vegetables like onion and seeds like poppy seeds included in the dough. Bread is among the oldest prepared foods in the world and may even be the very first food ever prepared by mankind. Leavened bread can also be traced back to prehistoric periods.
More About Bread
Fresh bread is well known for the aroma, taste and texture but it is important to maintain its freshness and bread that has dried or stiffened past its ideal state is referred to as stale bread. In modern times bread is frequently arrives wrapped in a plastic or paper film and often comes ready sliced. It is best stored in a semi-airtight container such as a breadbox to keep it from drying out and going stale. If bread is kept in moist and warm environments it is very likely to show mold growth which usually appears as green spots that grow larger hour by hour. Bread that is kept at low temperatures inside a refrigerator will still grow molds after several days but the activity of the mold growth is slower compared to bread kept at room temperature. Bread that is kept in a warm and dry environment will quickly begin to turn stale due to retrogradation.
The crumb is how culinary experts and bakers describe the soft, inside part of the bread and thios should not be confused with small pieces of bread falling from a loaf which we also call crumbs. The outside suface of a loaf of bread which is harder and may be crisp is called the crust.
Serving Bread
Bread is ready to serve as soon as it has finished being cooked. Bread is usually eaten by being held in your hands but may also be eaten using a knife and fork. It can be eaten on its own or together with other foods and sauces like gravy, olive oil and sardines. It is frequently eaten as a sandwich with cheese, vegetables or meat contained between two slices of fresh bread. Slices of bread can also be toasted under a grill and served with a topping on a plate or a filling if used as a toasted sandwich.
About the Crust
The crust of the bread is harder and firmer than the inside of the bread because that part is more exposed to the heat during the cooking process. It becomes browned and hardened from caramelization of the proteins and sugars under the intense heat at the surface of the bread. The nature of the bread crust varies depending on the type of bread and the way that it has been baked. Commercial bread is baked using jets the steam pointed towards the bread to cook it and make the crust. Some bread crusts are very unpalatable, particularly among children though they are often the tastiest part of the bread. Crusts always have a different color to the insides of the bread due to the caramelization occurring during cooking.
Making And Baking Bread
You only need an oven to make bread nut these days a lot of us prefer to use a breadmaking machine to make the process of bread making almost automatic. With a good breadmaking machine you can simply put the ingredients in the machine, press a few buttons and a few hours later, or the next morning if you prefer, you go to the kitchen and have fresh baked bread ready and waiting for you to enjoy. It does not get much simpler to make your own bread than this.
