Bread...bread...bread

Bread is a staple food prepared by baking a dough of flour and water. It is popular around the world and is one of the world's oldest foods.

The virtually infinite combinations of different flours, and differing proportions of ingredients, has resulted in the wide variety of types, shapes, sizes, and textures available around the world. It may be leavened (aerated) by a number of different processes ranging from the use of naturally occurring microbes to high-pressure artificial aeration during preparation and/or baking, or may be left unleavened. A wide variety of additives may be used, from fruits and nuts to various fats, to chemical additives designed to improve flavour, texture, colour, and/or shelf life.

Bread may be served in different forms at any meal of the day, eaten as a snack, and is even used as an ingredient in other culinary preparations. As a basic food worldwide, bread has come to take on significance beyond mere nutrition, evolving into a fixture in religious rituals, secular cultural life, and language.

Bread is one of the oldest prepared foods. Evidence from 30,000 years ago in Europe revealed starch residue on rocks used for pounding plants.It is possible that during this time, starch extract from the roots of plants, such as cattails and ferns, was spread on a flat rock, placed over a fire and cooked into a primitive form of flatbread. Around 10,000 BC, with the dawn of the Neolithic age and the spread of agriculture, grains became the mainstay of making bread. Yeast spores are ubiquitous, including the surface of cereal grains, so any dough left to rest will become naturally leavened.

There were multiple sources of leavening available for early bread. Airborne yeasts could be harnessed by leaving uncooked dough exposed to air for some time before cooking. Pliny the Elder reported that the Gauls and Iberians used the foam skimmed from beer to produce "a lighter kind of bread than other peoples." Parts of the ancient world that drank wine instead of beer used a paste composed of grape juice and flour that was allowed to begin fermenting, or wheat bran steeped in wine, as a source for yeast. The most common source of leavening was to retain a piece of dough from the previous day to use as a form of sourdough starter.

Compact yeast cake

Dough before 1st rising

Dough after 1st rising

Dough after proofing, ready to be baked