In 60 seconds
- It starts in a wheat grain. A wheat grain is a bran coat (about 14.5% of its weight), a tiny germ (2.5%) and a starchy endosperm (83%). Atta is the whole grain ground. Maida is the endosperm alone. Both have about the same protein, but atta has about four times the fibre.
- Kneading builds gluten. Add water and two flour proteins, glutenin and gliadin, link into gluten. Kneading stretches the tangle of chains into thin, springy sheets. When a pinch of dough stretches thin enough to let light through, the windowpane test, the net is ready to hold gas.
- Yeast blows the bubbles. Baker's yeast is a living fungus, 8 to 10 billion cells in a gram. It splits sugar into carbon dioxide and alcohol, about half a gram of each from a gram of sugar. The gas inflates tiny air cells that kneading folded in. Yeast works fastest near 35 °C and dies by about 55 to 60 °C.
- Proofing is a race. Warmth and more yeast speed the rise. Salt, about 2% of the flour, slows it and tightens the gluten. A standard dough doubles in about an hour at 27 °C and takes many hours in the fridge. Wait too long and the bubble walls tear: the dough collapses, over-proofed.
- The oven sets it from the outside in. In the first minutes the loaf springs up by as much as a quarter. Near 60 °C the yeast dies, and from 60 to 80 °C the starch swells and sets into crumb. The wet inside can never pass 100 °C. Only the dried crust climbs to about 150 °C, where the Maillard reaction turns it brown.
- Stale is not dry. Bread goes stale because its starch slowly re-crystallises and squeezes out water, fastest just above freezing. So the fridge is the worst place for it and the freezer the best. Sourdough rises with wild yeasts and bacteria, naan with yeast or curd, and roti with nothing but steam.
Words worth knowing
| Term | Meaning |
|---|
| Endosperm | The starchy inside of the wheat grain, about 83% of its weight. Maida is ground endosperm; atta is the whole grain. |
| Gluten | The stretchy network formed when the wheat proteins glutenin and gliadin are wetted and kneaded. It traps the gas that raises bread. |
| Windowpane test | Stretching a pinch of dough into a sheet. If light shows through before it tears, the gluten is developed. |
| Fermentation | Yeast splitting sugar into carbon dioxide and ethanol: C6H12O6 → 2 C2H5OH + 2 CO2. |
| Proofing | Resting a yeast dough so the gas can raise it. Too long and it over-proofs: the bubble walls tear and it falls. |
| Oven spring | The quick rise in the first minutes of baking, before the yeast dies and the crust sets. |
| Gelatinisation | Starch granules taking up water, swelling and setting into a gel at about 60 to 80 °C. It turns dough into crumb. |
| Maillard reaction | Sugars and amino acids reacting in dry heat, from roughly 140 to 150 °C, to make the brown colour and smell of crust. |
| Retrogradation | Gelatinised starch slowly re-crystallising as bread ages. The main cause of staling, and fastest in the fridge. |
A short history
From burnt crumbs in a desert fireplace 14,400 years ago to the pav, the naan and the sliced loaf.
- 12400 BCE · Bread before farming (Natufian hunter-gatherers; studied by Amaia Arranz-Otaegui, Lara Gonzalez Carretero, Tobias Richter and colleagues, Shubayqa 1, Black Desert, north-eastern Jordan)
- 2500 BCE · The bakeries that fed the pyramid builders (Bakers of the Old Kingdom; excavated by Ancient Egypt Research Associates, the team led by Mark Lehner, The workers' town at Giza)
- 79 · A loaf from the day Vesuvius erupted (Celer, a slave of Quintus Granius Verus, Herculaneum and Pompeii, Bay of Naples)
- 1300 · Amir Khusrau writes of naan (Amir Khusrau, poet at the court of the Delhi sultans, Delhi)
- 1550 · Pão comes to Goa, raised with toddy (Portuguese Jesuits and the bakers of Salcete, Majorda and Salcete, Goa)
- 1857 · Fermentation is the work of living yeast (Louis Pasteur, Lille and Paris)
- 1928 · The first sliced loaf goes on sale (Otto Frederick Rohwedder and the baker Frank Bench, Chillicothe Baking Company, Chillicothe, Missouri)
- 1961 · The Chorleywood bread process (Bill Collins, George Elton and Norman Chamberlain, British Baking Industries Research Association, Chorleywood, Hertfordshire)
The full story, with 29 moments, charts, people and 63 sources: glassbox.how/e/breadclear/history. The data lives in history.json.
Video and slides
Made with the Glassbox studio from this box's storyboard (window.glassbox.director). Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0.
| File | What | Size |
|---|
glassbox/reel.mp4 | Reel / Short, with captions and soundtrack | 1080×1920 |
glassbox/video.mp4 | YouTube video, with captions and soundtrack | 1920×1080 |
glassbox/slide-1…10.jpg | Instagram carousel | 1080×1350 |
glassbox/thumb.jpg | YouTube thumbnail | 1280×720 |
glassbox/cover.jpg | Share card and repo social preview | 1200×630 |
glassbox/history-reel.mp4 | “History in 10 moments” Reel / Short | 1080×1920 |
glassbox/history-slide-*.jpg | History carousel | 1080×1350 |
glassbox/post.json | Post copy and schedule used by the publish kit | |
Privacy
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It remembers a few things in your own browser only, and never sends them anywhere:
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