Baking properly means to heat anything in an oven or fire so as to harden it; and in this sense it is used when applied to the manufacture of bread, porcelain, pottery, bricks, &c. It is also used as synonymous with the words cook and dress, as when applied to baked meats, pies, &c. In the present article the baking of flour into bread will alone be treated of.

Like most of the arts of primary importance, its origin precedes the period of history, and is involved in the obscurity of the early ages of the world. There is no evidence from Scripture that Abraham was acquainted with the method of making loaf-bread. Cakes and unleavened bread are repeatedly mentioned as made by him, but no notice is taken of loaf-bread. We are certain that it was known in the time of Moses, as in the Jewish law there is a prohibition against making use of it during the celebration of the passover. (Exodus, chap. xii, verse 15.) Egypt, both from the nature of the country and the early period of its civilization, seems very probably to have been the place where this art was first practised. The Chaldeans, however, put in a claim. They were civilized nearly as early as the Egyptians, and they were celebrated among the ancients for the excellence of their bread. The Greeks assure us that they were taught the art of making bread by the god Pan. This lively and superstitious people ascribed almost all the important arts of common life to their gods; or rather, perhaps, their gratitude induced them to deify the authors of these most useful inventions. Bakers first settled in Rome during the war with Perseus, king of Macedon. (Plini Hist. Nat. xviii. 11.) It was then that the Romans became acquainted with the refinements of the Greeks, and that their capital became crowded with adventurers of all kinds, with artists and philosophers, from the prolific soil of Achaea. Before this period the Romans were often distinguished or reproached by the appellation of the pulse-eating nation.

Since the introduction of bakers into Rome, the art of making bread has always been practised in the south of Europe. But it made its way into the north very slowly; and even at present, in the northern countries of Europe and Asia, loaf-bread is seldom used except by the higher classes of inhabitants. In Sweden, for example, you see rolls frequently in the towns, but never loaves. Göttenburg is a town containing about 23,000 inhabitants. In the year 1812 it was crowded with merchants from all parts of Europe, being the great connecting link between Britain and the Continent. Towards the end of that year the captain of an English packet ordered a Göttenburg baker to bake for him a quantity of bread, amounting to L.1 sterling in value. The baker was confounded at so great an order, and refused to comply till the captain gave him security that he would carry off and pay for the loaves, declaring that he could never dispose of so great a quantity of bread in Göttenburg if it were left upon his hands. In the country part of Sweden no bread is made but rye-cakes, as hard nearly as flint, and which are only baked twice a year. About eighty years ago loaf-bread was almost as rare in the country places and villages of Scotland, barley bannocks and oatmeal cakes constituting the universal substitutes among almost all ranks. But the case is much otherwise now.

In many parts of England it is the custom for private families to bake their own bread. This is particularly the case in Kent, and in some parts of Lancashire. In the year 1804 the town of Manchester, with a population of 90,000 persons, did not contain a single public baker.

Bread consists of two kinds, fermented and unfermented. Unfermented bread consists of the flour of various kinds of grains or pulse, formed by means of water into a thick paste or doughy mass, and then fired either in a regular oven, or a hot iron plate, or by being put into a hole heated by fuel of some kind, where it is covered over with the ashes till thoroughly cooked. When the firing is carried so far as to dry and harden this kind of unfermented bread, it receives the name of biscuit (from the French words meaning twice fired); when less thoroughly baked the bread forms a heavy rather solid loaf or cake, which receives the various names of cake, bannock, scome, damper, &c., and is the form of bread used most generally over the world.

Almost every kind of edible grain is used in baking unfermented bread. In the warmer regions of the globe, and in the torrid zone, maize and rice take the place of most other grains, and perhaps a larger portion of the human race feed on these two grains than on all the rest put together. In northern latitudes again, rye, barley, and oats are the chief grains used as human food. But in all the temperate zones wheat is the chief and most valuable of the grains. In various countries, but to a comparatively small extent, flour of pease, beans, lentils, millet, guinea corn or dinarra, &c., are used to form their unfermented bread.

Unfermented bread possesses this great advantage over fermented bread, that when well fired, and so dried as to have assumed the form of biscuit, it will keep unchanged for a very long period of time. Hence its value as ship stores, seeing that on board ship there is not the convenience for baking loaf-bread daily for such a large number of men.

At the victualling departments of our navy yards, almost all the biscuits for ship stores are now manufactured with the aid of machinery. The application of machinery to this department gives immense advantages over the old system of baking biscuits by hand labour, in addition to doing the whole work much better, making superior biscuits, and saving fully two-thirds on wages alone. Thus it is calculated that at the baking establishments at Deptford, Gosport, and Plymouth, from seven to eight thousand tons of biscuits could be annually produced, at a saving of L12,000 from the cost under the system of hand manufacture. Biscuits for the navy are manufactured only of the best wheaten flour, but experience has fully demonstrated that the health of the seamen is much better preserved by the flour having a certain admixture of bran in it, than when the whole bran is thoroughly removed. The following account of the manufacture of biscuits for the navy at the Royal Clarence Victualling Establishment at Weevil, near Portsmouth, from the United Service Journal, will be read with interest.

"It having been discovered that the flour supplied to government by contract, had in some instances been most shamefully adulterated, the corn is ground at mills comprised within the establishment, by which means the introduction of improper ingredients is prevented, and precisely the proportion of bran which is requisite in the composition of good sea biscuit is retained, and no more. The flour mill is furnished with ten pairs of stones, by which forty bushels of flour may be ground and dressed ready for baking in an hour. The baking establishment consists of nine ovens, each 13 feet long by 11 feet wide, and 17½ inches in height. These are each heated by separate furnaces, so constructed that a blast of hot air and fire sweeps through them, and gives to the interior the requisite dose of heat in an incredible short space of time. The first operation in making the biscuits consists in mixing the flour, or rather meal and water; 13 gallons of water are first introduced into a trough, and then a sack of meal weighing 280 lb. When the whole has been poured in by a channel communicating with an upper room, a bell rings, and the trough is closed. An apparatus, consisting of two sets of what are called knives, each set ten in number, are then made to revolve among the flour and water by means of machinery. This mixing operation lasts one minute and a half; during which time the double set of knives or stirrers makes twenty-six revolutions. The next process is to cast the lumps of dough under what are called the breaking rollers,—huge cylinders of iron, weighing 14 cwt. each, and moved horizontally by the machinery along stout tables. The dough is thus formed into large rude masses 6 feet long by 3 feet broad, and several inches thick. At this stage of the business the kneading is still very imperfect, and traces of dry flour may still be detected. These great masses of dough are now drawn out, and cut into a number of smaller masses about a foot and a half long by a foot wide, and again thrust under the rollers, which is repeated until the mixture is so complete that not the slightest trace of any inequality is discoverable in any part of the mass. It should have been stated that two workmen stand one at each side of the rollers, and as the dough is flattened out they fold it up, or double up one part upon another, so that the roller at its next passage squeezes these parts together, and forces them to mix. The dough is next cut into small portions, and being placed upon large flat boards, is, by the agency of machinery, conveyed from the centre to the extremity of the baking room. Here it is received by a workman who places it under what is called the sheet roller, but which for size, colour, and thickness, more nearly resembles a blanket. The kneading is thus complete, and the dough only requires to be cut into biscuits before it is committed to the oven. The cutting is effected by what is called the cutting-plate, consisting of a net-work of fifty-two sharp-edged hexagonal frames, each as large as a biscuit. This frame is moved slowly up and down by machinery, and the workman, watching his opportunity, slides under it the above described blanket of dough, which is about the size of a leaf of a dining-table; and the cutting-frame, in its descent, indents the sheet, but does not actually cut it through, but leaves sufficient substance to enable the workman at the mouth of the oven to jerk the whole mass of biscuits unbroken into it. The dough is prevented sticking to the cutting-frame by the following ingenious device: between each of the cutter-frames is a small flat open frame, moveable up and down, and loaded with an iron ball weighing several ounces. When the great frame comes down upon the dough, and cuts out fifty-two biscuits, each of these minor frames yields to the pressure and is raised up; but as soon as the great frame rises, the weight of the balls, acting on the little frames, thrusts the whole blanket off and allows the workmen to pull it out." Each biscuit is stamped with the government mark, and the number of the oven, as well as punctured with holes, by the same movement which cuts out the piece of dough. One quarter of an hour is sufficient to bake the biscuit; they are then withdrawn from the oven, broken asunder by the hand, and placed for three days in a drying-room heated to 85° or 90°. Dr Ure mentions that it was found, on experiment at the above-mentioned baking establishment, that in 116 days, during 68 of which the work was continued for only 7½ hours; and during 48 days for only 5½ hours each day, in all 769 working hours, 12,307 cwt., or 1,378,400 lb. of biscuits were produced from the nine ovens. The wages of the men employed amounted to L.273, 10s. 9½d.; whereas, if the same quantity had been made by hand labour, the wages alone would have amounted to L.933, 9s. 10½d.; showing a saving during that time, in the matter of wages alone, to the extent of L.659, 7s. 0½d.

Fermented or loaf bread differs from unfermented bread in being light and spongy, in being full of small cavities, in having a more agreeable taste, and in being more easily chewed and digested. Fermented bread can only be made from flour which contains the substance called gluten as one of its ingredients, and wheat is the only grain which contains it in sufficient abundance to form a light and spongy bread. Rye, which next to wheat contains the greatest quantity of gluten, is also capable of being formed into a fermented bread, but very inferior in lightness and sponginess to that made from wheat flour. Gluten is the viscid substance which is left in the mouth when wheat is long chewed, and may more easily be procured by forming flour into dough with water, putting this into a muslin bag, and washing and kneading it till all the starch is washed out: the glutinous matter left in the bag is the impure gluten. The finer the wheat the larger is the proportion of this matter, and consequently the better fitted for making loaf-bread. It is this viscid substance which gives wheaten flour, when made into dough, that superior tenacity which enables it to be raised by fermentation. Wheat, besides gluten, contains starch, sugar, gum, also small quantities of albumen, caseine, and fatty matter or oil. The following table shows the relative quantities of the constituent parts of wheat flours, as ascertained by Vaquelin in 100 parts of flour.

| Species of Wheat Flour | Water | Gluten | Starch | Sugar | Gum | Bran | |------------------------|-------|--------|--------|-------|-----|------| | Raw wheat of Odessa flour, Vaquelin | 12-0 | 14-55 | 56-50 | 8-48 | 4-90 | 2-3 | | Soft wheat of Odessa flour, Vaquelin | 10-0 | 12-00 | 62-00 | 7-56 | 5-90 | 1-2 | | French wheat flour, Vaquelin | 10-0 | 10-96 | 71-49 | 4-72 | 3-32 | ... | | Wheat of Paris hospitals (second quality) | 8-0 | 10-30 | 71-20 | 4-80 | 3-60 | ... |

Sir Humphry Davy and others have estimated the quantity of gluten in wheat flour so high as from 19 to 24 per cent. But this probably resulted from their not drying the gluten thoroughly, or freeing it sufficiently from foreign ingredients. Professor Johnston, from numerous experiments carefully conducted in his laboratory, states, "we may safely, I think, conclude from these, that English flour seldom contains more than 10 per cent. of dry gluten;" and he gives a long table of the results actually obtained in proof of his statement. (Agric. Chemistry, p. 871.)

When wheat is ground it is sifted so as to separate the bran, which consists of the coarse outer skin of the grain, and the parts of the grain which are more or less imperfectly or coarsely ground. Professor Johnston states, that taking as an example three lots of good wheat ground at Mr Robson's mills, Durham, the yield of the different products was respectively, per 100 parts of the wheat:

| Lot | Fine flour | 2nd Lot | 3rd Lot | |-----|------------|---------|---------| | | 74-2 | 75-1 | 77-9 | | | Boxings, or coarser flour | 9-0 | 8-3 | 6-1 | | | Sharps or pollard | 5-8 | 6-6 | 5-6 | | | Bran | 7-8 | 7-0 | 6-9 | | | Waste | 3-2 | 3-0 | 3-5 |

100-0 100-0 100-0

From Mr John R. Tait, mill-owner and baker in Edinburgh, we have received the following as the average yield of good wheat flour, the whole being copied from one of his actual mill receipts for May 1853. Thirty-two Scotch bolls, or 16 quarters of wheat, at the average weight of 68½ lb. per bushel—weighing in all 578 st. 11 lb.—yielded of:

| Item | St. Lb. | |-----------------------|---------| | Fine flour | 414 | | Odd and second flour | 23 | | Parings (sharps and pollards) | 36 | 12 | | Bran and shellings | 92 | | Waste | 11 |

Total, 578 11

According to the purpose for which the flour is required, the second flour is sometimes not separated; in which case the 578 st. 11 lb. of wheat would yield 437 st. 13 lb. of flour, the other ingredients remaining the same; and Mr Tait's mill receipts are so uniform for a series of years, that the above may be taken as the average production of flour from the best wheat sold in the Edinburgh and Linlithgow markets.

When wheat flour is made into a dough by means of water, and is kept in a warm place, a spontaneous fermentation occurs among its particles, causing it to swell up. This, for distinction's sake, has been called the panary fermentation. This fermentation goes on at the expense of the sugar and starch in the flour, a portion of the carbon and oxygen of these principles combining in the proportions to form carbonic acid gas. As the escape of this gas is prevented by the tough or viscid gluten in the dough, the whole mass is swelled by the formation of numerous vesicular cavities, which are filled with this gas, and which are very apparent in the bread when baked. Dough, thus naturally fermented, requires not only much time, but possesses the additional disadvantage of having contracted an acidity and a putrescent flavour, both of which seriously injure the quality of the bread. This used to be got the better of by using this self-fermented mass as leaven only, adding a comparatively small piece of it to a large mass of fresh-made dough. This leaven rapidly excited the fermentative process in the whole of the new mass, and the whole mass was then said to be leavened.

This was, however, a clumsy way of exciting the panary fermentation in large masses of dough; and it was soon discovered that the addition of yeast or barm, i.e., the frothy scum which rises to the surface of beer when it is undergoing fermentation, was a much more speedy mode of accomplishing the same end. At first all the yeast used was obtained from the brewers; but now, in almost every large town, yeast or barm breweries exist, where a wort from pure malt is fermented alone, for the sole purpose of supplying the bakers with yeast for baking.

Pliny informs us that yeast in his time was employed in Spain and Gaul as a ferment of bread. Gallicae et Hispaniae frumenta in potum resoluto, quibus diximus generibus, spuma ita concreta pro fermento utuntur. Qua de causa levis illis quam eceis panis est. (Hist. Nat. lib. xviii. c. 7.)

From this passage we see that the Romans employed leaven to raise their bread, but that they were sensible of the superiority of yeast. Leaven, however, made its way both into France and Spain, and was universally employed in the manufacture of bread till towards the end of the seventeenth century, when the bakers of Paris began to import yeast from Flanders, and to employ it pretty generally as a substitute for leaven. We have here a striking instance of the blindness and obstinacy of the learned and the powerful, and the readiness with which they are disposed to arm themselves against all alterations and improvements. The bread by this substitution was manifestly improved, both in appearance and in flavour. This variation excited attention; the cause was discovered; the faculty of medicine in Paris declared it prejudicial to the health; the French government interfered; and the bakers were prohibited, under a severe penalty, from employing yeast in the manufacture of bread.

But it is in vain for governments, colleges, and universities, to oppose themselves to those improvements which take place in the arts and manufactures essential to civilized society. The ingenuity and perseverance of self-interest is proof against prohibitions, and contrives to elude the vigilance of the most active government. The laws of Queen Elizabeth, however tyrannical and absurd, did not prevent the introduction of indigo as a dye-stuff into England. Neither did the authority of Louis the Fourteenth, nor the decision of the physicians, deter the Parisian bakers from persisting in their improved mode of making bread. The yeast in Flanders was put into sacks; the moisture was allowed to drop out; and in this comparatively dry state it was carried to the capital of France.

The superiority of yeast bread became gradually visible. Baking to all; the decisions of the medical faculty were forgotten; and the prohibition laws were allowed tacitly to sink into oblivion. The new mode of baking by degrees extended itself to other countries, and is now, we believe, practised everywhere. In warm climates, where the yeast of beer cannot be had, other substitutes are employed, which answer the same purpose.

It was formerly much disputed whether the panary fermentation was the same as, or different from, the vinous fermentation. But the researches of Dr Colquhoun, Mr Graham, and others, have settled the question by showing that it is neither more nor less than true vinous fermentation; and the fact may be easily shown by inclosing the loaf when baking in a close oven, and condensing the vapour which escapes from it, when alcohol is obtained. If, however, the dough be allowed to sour before being subjected to the heat, no alcohol is obtained, because the next stage of the vinous fermentation has been gone through, namely, the acetous, when all the alcohol assumes the form of the acetic or lactic acids. Following out these researches, it was found that the fermentation was mainly dependent on the saccharine matter in the wheat, aided by the conversion of a portion of the starch into sugar, as happens in the well-known process of malting.

When the baker prepares his dough for a batch, according to circumstances he either mixes the whole ingredients together at once—called setting the whole sponge,—or else he only mixes a quarter of the ingredients at one time,—called setting quarter-sponge. The quantity of ingredients used in setting a sponge varies according to the sale of the bread; but for a bag of good wheat, weighing 280 lbs, about 15 gallons of water, of about the temperature of 90°, 5 lb. of salt, and 14 pint of yeast are employed. In Edinburgh it has been found, by numerous experiments conducted on the large scale by the best bakers, whose bread is unequalled for quality, that the best bread is produced by setting the whole sponge at once. In London, and most towns where much of the bread sold is very inferior, the custom is to mix at first only a fourth of the flour which is intended to be employed, adding only half a pint of yeast and the requisite proportion of salt. This is called setting quarter-sponge. In this case some dry flour is thrown over the top of the mass, and cloths are thrown over the barrel in which the mixture is made. It is then left for three hours. By this time active fermentation has been excited in the whole mass, which has swollen up, burst, and collapsed two or three times. An additional quarter of flour, and its proportion of salt and water, are then added to the mass, the whole intimately mixed and left for about five hours. This is termed setting half-sponge. After this period the other half of the flour, with its relative proportions of salt and water, are added, the whole mixed intimately for about an hour; and this is termed setting whole sponge; after which the dough is laid in the baking-trough and covered up for about four hours.

As above mentioned, the best Edinburgh bakers greatly prefer setting the whole sponge at once; and the knowledge of the chemical nature of the changes which the flour undergoes during the fermentation, quite bears out the practical conclusion that such should not only produce better bread than by setting quarter-sponge, but also that the produce of loaves from the bag of flour should be greater. By the plan of setting quarter-sponge, a portion of the flour is kept in a state of fermentation for a much longer period than by the whole-sponge process; the natural consequence of which is, that a much larger quantity of the sugar and starch in the flour is decomposed, and the whole mass has a greater tendency to pass into the next stage of fermentation—the acetous fermentation. The bread prepared by the quarter-sponge

process is therefore not only diminished in quantity, but also sooner gets sour than when the whole sponge is set at once; and instead of a bag of flour yielding from 96 to 100 loaves, each 4 lb. in weight, which it does by the whole-sponge process, the number of loaves rarely if ever exceeds 94. As a general rule it takes 3 lb. of good flour to make a well-fired loaf weighing 4 lb.

When the dough is sufficiently fermented it is well kneaded, and is then weighed out into masses weighing 4 lb. each. During the firing this half-pound is nearly dissipated, so that when the loaf comes from the oven it weighs somewhat more than 4 lb., and when well and properly fired will not fall below that weight for 24 or 36 hours. Many London and second-rate bakers, in order to make more loaves out of a bag of flour, and yet keep up the weight of the loaf, under-fire their bread, and when it is removed from the oven, place it in a close place, and cover it over with thick cloths till it cools. This greatly deteriorates the bread, rendering it heavy, more indigestible, and prone to turn acid and mouldy. The first-rate Edinburgh bakers, who fire their bread so much more thoroughly, expose the loaves freely to the air when removed from the oven, by placing them in open shelves, and do all in their power to prevent the vapour rising from the warm bread condensing on the loaves themselves. It seems to be mainly attention to these points, viz. setting at once the whole sponge, thorough firing, and free exposure of the bread to the air during its cooling, that the great superiority of the Edinburgh bread is to be attributed. But it may be remarked that no subsequent attention will make up for the want of good flour.

In London, where so much bad bread is made, and inferior flour is used, it is not unusual to add alum, in proportions varying from one ounce to six or eight ounces to the bag of flour: the more inferior the flour, the larger is the quantity of alum used. This addition is supposed to render the bread firmer and whiter, and it certainly appears to have such an effect on the inferior flours; and, as in London bread is valued according to its whiteness, the Londoners are content to eat an inferior and not so wholesome bread in order to please the eye. Potatoes and several other articles are used to adulterate the flour from which bread is prepared, but it is unnecessary to particularize these, as every addition to wheaten flour only deteriorates the bread baked from it. See ADULTERATION.

An important desideratum has long been felt, viz. an easy mode of ascertaining the relative goodness of bread. The comfort and health of so many are dependent on the purity and goodness of the bread they use, that it is astonishing so few attempts have been made to find a test easy of application for this purpose. One of the most intelligent of the bakers in Edinburgh mentioned to us one test he has been in the habit of using for twenty years past with uniform success. Well-fired bread, made of good and pure wheat flour, is dry, light, and spongy. Bread made of inferior flour, or to which has been added rye, barley, potatoes, potato starch, alum, &c., or bread under-fired, or sweated, or acid, is heavier, damper, and less spongy. The test is: cut from the two loaves pieces of equal size, and put them in saucers having each the same quantity of water, the best bread will invariably absorb the most water. The same may be more accurately done by cutting the pieces of bread of equal weight, placing each in water till thoroughly saturated, and weighing each piece again. Invariably the best bread will be found to have absorbed the largest quantity of water and to weigh the heaviest.

The varieties of bread baked in this country are endless, and it would only be waste of space to mention them here. It may merely be mentioned, that when the bread is desired to be especially light and porous the dough is fired in deep iron pans, which, by preventing the escape of carbonic acid gas from the sides of the loaf, causes the whole loaf to swell up more, and produces a greater amount of sponginess. Bread thus baked is termed pan or pan-soled bread.

With many invalids even the best fermented or leavened bread disagrees, and it has been the aim of many bakers to produce a light and spongy bread by the disengagement of carbonic acid gas or other vapour in the mass of dough, during the firing, without the use of yeast or leaven. For this purpose carbonate of ammonia has been and is extensively used; and, as this substance is totally volatilized by the heat of the oven, it imparts neither smell nor taste to the bread, yet, by assuming the gaseous form in the dough, causes it to swell out, thus rendering it light and spongy, and consequently easily digestible. With the same end in view muriatic acid (spirit of salt) and carbonate of soda, in the proper proportions for forming table salt, have been used with perfect success. Others again have used with the same view carbonate of soda and tartaric acid, in the proper proportions to neutralize each other; and it is by one of these three processes that most of the light spongy unfermented bread now sold is prepared. Whenever acid of any kind is used for this end, it ought always to be used in the exact proportion to neutralize the soda used; if the soda be in excess, the bread assumes a yellowish discoloured hue; if the acid be in excess, the bread is unpleasant to eat. We have often baked very pleasant bread by using 600 grains carbonate of soda and six drachms muriatic acid to 8 lb. of flour. Some however use a half more of the soda and acid to the same quantity of flour. When from oversight, or from the panary fermentation having gone on too rapidly, the dough has become sour, the acidity may be checked, and the bread rendered wholesome, by the addition of a small quantity of carbonate of soda or of magnesia.