The smell of freshly-baked bread is one of the most recognisable aromas in the home and on the high street. Bread has been a staple food across the world since the dawn of agriculture – for at least 14,500 years, possibly as long as 30,000 years. In that time, specialist breads have evolved across different cultures and countries. Some are fried (Indian puris), some are heated in a pan (Mexican tortillas), some are boiled (Jewish bagels, pretzels), but most are baked in an oven. Europeans are big bread eaters. Whether [it’s] French baguettes, English sliced white, German rye bread, Italian ciabatta, or Spanish pan blanco, bread is an essential part of most European diets.
SCIENCE
Bread is made with just a few simple ingredients: flour (usually a form of ground wheat or other grain), water and yeast, with small amounts of salt, sugar and fat. These are formed into dough, which rises in a process of fermentation. After it is baked in an oven, a crust forms on top of the bread, while the loaf remains soft and moist on the inside. Whether malted, whole grain, sour dough or white loaf, there is plenty of science involved in baking bread. The taste and texture depends upon the environment and agriculture, the type and production of grain, the milling and storage of flour, the sugars, starch, enzymes, the kneading and mixing of dough, and the risks of oxidation.
REVIVAL
The UK saw a huge decline in bread baking between 1940 and 2000. In this period Britain lost almost 90 per cent of its bakeries. Recent years have seen a revival, however, with dozens of bakeries opening across the country. Home baking has seen a big increase in popularity too, especially during the long weeks of Covid-19 lockdown. Sales of flour have reached record levels and supermarket shelves have emptied of baking ingredients. It seems that stretching dough can help to relieve anxiety as well as providing freshly-baked treats under isolation and with social distancing restrictions.
BIGGEST BREAD EATERS
While the UK continues to see a surge in numbers of craft bakeries, and Brits still love their sliced white, toast and bread sandwiches, the country remains at the bottom of the European league table for consumption of bread. Germans and Austrians are the biggest bread eaters, consuming an average of eighty kilos per person each year. By comparison, the average bread consumption in the UK and Ireland is less than fifty kilos of bread per person per annum.
What is the magic of bread? One man who knows better than most is master baker1 Paul Merry. He grew up in Melbourne, Australia, and discovered bread baking in his mid-20s. He soon set up his own bakery just outside of Melbourne, and began a lifetime’s commitment to baking. He moved to England with his family in 1990 and now lives in Dorset, in the west of England, where he runs a craft bakery in the grounds of a family-run flour mill. He also provides a consultancy service to other bakers and bakeries, and runs courses to train the next generation of bakers. Now seventy-two, Merry’s passion for bread remains as strong as ever. Why does he think so many people love bread?
Paul Merry (Anglo-Australian accent): Well, we all like eating it, so most people getting involved in it want to make good bread that they would like to eat. And as you understand more about it, and fermentation, you start realising things about the appearance of well-fermented, and well-made, and well-baked bread, so you strive to have it of good appearance, as well as it being flavoursome, and good to eat.
CHEMISTRY AND BOTANY
There’s a lot more to producing a delicious, perfect-looking loaf than just mixing ingredients together in a bowl. It’s a question of hard work, experience, and science, says Merry:
Paul Merry: If you want to try and understand the process of your craft, then you do have to get to understand the raw materials, and then it’s unavoidable that you’re led to having to try and understand some chemistry and some botany for baking to do with fermentation, which of course, is conducted by a fungus.
THE CRUST
One of the most tasty and attractive parts of a loaf of bread is the crust. Often a rich, golden brown, it’s much more than just a covering for the loaf, as Merry explains:
Paul Merry: The crust is of course the shell of the bread, so it has a purpose that it protects the bread, but it is also the repository of special flavours because in the late phase of the oven there’s a combination of things that happen on the surface of the bread. And heat, again chemistry, and it’s known in science as the Maillard reaction, but what’s happening is that amino acids and starch are gelling on the surface of the bread. And then, in the intense heat of the oven, special things happen, and the brown, rich caramel colours of the crust form, but they also get spiked with a great range of flavours when this is happening. So, crust is special.
SATISFYING
Everybody has their favourite type of bread. So what does Merry most enjoy baking – and eating?
Paul Merry: There’ll be some loaves, which are of the nature being rustic and perhaps they would be made with the coarser types of flour and they’ll make fabulous sour doughs. But then, there’s other breads, which are made with the most refined flour, and some of them are decadent things like a croissant say, that I make often… When you have a good day making the croissants well, so that they look particularly well, and that they’ve swollen and puffed up largely, and they’ve got beautiful colour, and they’re altogether pleasing, that’s as satisfying to me as it is to make a beautiful, lovely, wholesome, sourdough loaf.
HEARTENING REVIVAL
Not long ago, artisan and craft bread-making in the UK seemed to be facing extinction. In recent years there has been a major revival. The Covid-19 crisis has made many people recognise the importance of bread and baking. Will good bread survive?
Paul Merry: We are in the midst of a heartening revival, but when you look at all the food made in a country as large as Britain, all the bread baked, the craft sector might only be five per cent. And the hearty revival may have allowed it to rise, say from a dire two or three per cent, to five. So, it’s just a tiny, tiny little wedge, but it is heartening, and it just shows that there is a concern out there, and that the craft is not going to die.
Yeast: the raising agent
With baking on the increase, global Google searches for “yeast” increased by 300 per cent during the month of March 2020. Yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, is a tiny single-cell organism and classified as a fungus. It grows best in warm, humid conditions. Yeast feeds on sugars and starches, which it converts into carbon dioxide and ethyl alcohol through a process of fermentation. It is the carbon dioxide trapped in the dough that makes bread and other bakery items rise.
A baker’s dozen
In the UK, a dozen means twelve. If someone refers to a baker’s dozen, however, they mean thirteen. Why? Back in 13th-century England, a law relating to wheat prices meant that any baker caught selling undersized ‘light’ loaves of bread could be flogged as a punishment. Not every baker had scales, so to avoid breaking the law, they would give an extra loaf with every dozen purchased to cover any possible shortfall.