Quality Characteristics of Bread

In common with most, if not all products of modern life, the evolution of breadmaking processes has progressed further since the mid-1940s than in all of the preceding centuries and yet, because it is ‘that most ancient of foods’, it still evokes the most passionate of discussions about quality, taste and value for money.1. _______________

The proliferation of bread varieties, a few of which are illustrated in Figure 1.1, (Figure 1.1. Bread varieties: rear left — mixed grain; rear right — sandwich; middle

baguette; front — ciabatta.) derives from the unique properties of wheat proteins to form gluten and from the bakers’ ingenuity in manipulating the gluten structures formed within the dough.

The rubbery mass of gluten with its ability to deform, stretch, recover shape and trap gases is very important in the production of bread and all fermented products. 2.___________________

With such a long history of production and such diversity of form, breadmaking

is almost always an emotive subject. Whenever the subject of quality is raised amongst bakers and consumers, we can guarantee that there will be a diversity of opinion, with different bakers extolling the virtue of different breads, different processes, different doughmaking formulae and different ingredients.

3. _______________________ The characters of the products are diverse, and because of this the terms ‘good’ or ‘bad’ quality have no meaning, except to the individual making the assessment.

4. _____________________ For example, baguettes are characterized by a hard and crisp crust and without it we would reject the product, often describing a baguette with a soft crust as ‘stale’. On the other hand, sliced pan breads in the USA, the UK and elsewhere are characterized by a thin but soft crust, and if the crust were thick and hard it would often be rejected by consumers, ironically also being described as ‘stale’.

5. _______________________ Whatever the criteria we use to judge bread staleness, it becomes clear that the single most common requirement of a fermented product is that it should ideally retain all of the attributes which it had when it left the oven; above all else we expect our bread to be ‘fresh’.

The pursuit of fermented products which retain their ‘oven-fresh’ character for an extended period of time after they have left the oven has been one of the great challenges facing bakers, technologists and scientists for many years, and many different strategies have been evolved to meet this challenge. Whether they have been successful can really only be judged by consumers.

Stanley P. Cauvain and Linda S. Young

Technology of Breadmaking UK