Baking is the cooking of food by dry heat in an oven in which the action of the dry convection heat is modified by steam. The dry heat of baking changes the form of starches in the food and causes its outer surfaces to brown, giving it an attractive appearance and taste.
The browning is caused by caramelization of sugars. When baking, consideration must be given to the amount of fat that is contained in the food item. Higher levels of fat such as margarine, butter or vegetable shortening will cause an item to spread out during the baking process. A bakery (or baker’s shop) is an establishment which produces and sells flour-based food baked in an oven such as bread, cakes, pastries and pies.
Also Read: 75 Best Food Quotes For People Who Love To Eat
Being a baker is a lot more than just knowing how to bake bread. Bakery and confectionery as a career is both an art and science. A baker makes various kinds of loaves, bread rolls, croissants, buns, pastries, cakes and savories by adding his own innovation to his basic knowledge of baking. Every course on baking and confectionery teaches how to weigh out and measure ingredients, mix, divide and mould dough, set the dough to rise, bake different bread and confectionery products and how to decorate, slice and wrap the final product.
- Aeration: The treatment of dough or batter by charging with gas to produce a volume increase.
- Absorption: Taking in or reception by molecular and or physical action. Property of wheat flour that enables it to absorb liquid.
- Albumen: Egg white.
- Almond Paste: Almonds ground to paste with sugar.
- Ash: The incombustible residue left after burning matter. The term is used to denote the level of bran present in Maida.
- Bacteria: Microscopic organisms, various species of which are involved in fermentation and spoilage of food.
- Bake: To cook or roast by dry heat in a closed chamber such as an oven.
- Baking Powder: A chemical leavening agent composed of soda, dry acids, and corn starch (to absorb moisture), when heated, carbon dioxide is given off, to raise the batter during baking.
- Batter: A homogenous mixture of ingredients with liquid to make a mass that has soft plastic character.
- Bay: A well, made in a heap of flour and other dry materials to receive the liquid ingredients for mixing.
- Bleached Flour: The term refers to flour that has been treated by a chemical to remove its natural colour and make it whiter.
- Bleeding: Term applied to dough that has been cut and left unsealed at the cut thus permitting the escape of leavening gas.
- Blend: A mixture of several ingredients or grades of any ingredient.
- Bolting: Sifting of ground grain to remove the bran and coarse particles.
- Bran: A skin or outer covering of wheat grain.
- Bread: The accepted term for baked foods made of flour, sugar, shortening, salt and liquid, and leavened by the action of yeast.
- Buns: Small shapes of bread dough, sometimes slightly sweetened or flavored.
- Bread Dough: The unbaked mass of ingredients used for making bread.
- Butter Cream: Rich, uncooked frosting containing powder sugar, butter and / or other shortening and whipped to plastic condition.
- Butter Sponge: Cake made from sponge cake batter to which shortening has been added.
- Butterscotch: A flavor produced by the use of butter and brown sugar.
- Cake: A product obtained by baking a leavened batter containing flour, sugar, salt, egg, milk, liquid, flavoring, shortening, and a leavening agent.
- Caramelisd Sugar: Dry sugar heated with constant stirring until melted and dark in colour.
- Carbohydrates: Sugar and starches derived chiefly from fruits and vegetables sources, which contain set amounts of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.
- Cardamom: Seed of a spice plant used for flavoring.
- Casien: Principal nitrogenous or protein part of milk.
- Clear Flour: Lower grade and higher ash content flour remaining after the patent flour has been separated.
- Cinnamon: The aromatic bark of certain trees of the laurel family, ground and used as spice flavoring.
- Citron: The sweetened rind of fruit.
- Corn Meal: A coarse meal made by grounding corn.
- Cottage Cheese: The drained curd of soured or coagulated cream pressed and mixed until smooth.
- Cream: The fat portion of milk: also a thickened cooked mass of sugar, egg, milk, and a thicker used for pies and other fillings.
- Creaming: The process of mixing and aerating, shortening and another solid such as sugar and flour.
- Crescent Rolls: Hard crusted rolls shaped into crescents, often with seeds on top.
- Cripple: A misshapen, burnet or otherwise undesirable unit.
- Crusting: Formation of dry crust on surface which occurs from evaporation of water from the surface.
- Custard: A sweetened mixture of eggs and milk, which is baked or cooked over hot water.
- Danish Pastry: A flaky yeast dough having butter or shortening rolled in to it.
- Daistase: An enzyme possessing the power to convert starches in to dextrin and maltose.
- Divider: A machine used for cutting dough into desired size or weight. The dough is cut by volume not by weight.
- Docking: Punching a number of vertical impressions in dough piece prior to baking. Docking is done so that dough expands uniformly without bulging during baking.
- Dough: The mixed mass of combined ingredients for bread/rolls and biscuits, and other baked products.
- Dough Conditioner: A chemical product added to improve flour in its properties to hold gas.
- Dough Room: Special rooms in which bread doughs are mixed.
- Dough Temperatures: Temperature of dough at different stage of processing.
- Doughnuts: A cake frequently with a center hole, made of yeast-raised or baking powder dough, and fried in deep fat.
- Dry Yeast: A dehydrated form of yeast. Dry yeast has a long shelf life against fresh yeast, which is perishable.
- Dusting: Spreading a thin film of flour or starch on pans, workbench surfaces or machine surfaces that handle dough pieces.
- Dusting Flour: Flour used to shift on to dough handling equipment to prevent dough from sticking.
- Eclair: A long thin shell of the same paste as cream puffs.
- Emulsification: The process of blending together fat and water solutions of ingredients to produce a stable mixture, which will not separate on standing.
- Enriched Bread: Bread made from enriched flour and containing prescribed amounts of vitamins and minerals.
- Enzyme: A substance produced by living organisms that has the power to bring about changes in organic materials.
- Evaporated Milk: Unsweetened thickened milk from which water has been removed
- Fermentation: The chemical changes in an organic compound due to action of living organisms (yeast or bacteria), usually producing a leavening gas.
- Flour Extraction: A term referring to the proportion of the wheat that becomes flour. Commercial flour in the United States is the 72 percent extraction.
- Foam: Mass of beaten egg and sugar as in a sponge cake before the flour is added.
- Fold: To fold yeasted dough sheet over on to itself. With cake batter to lift and lap the batter on to itself to lightly incorporate ingredients.
- Fondant: Low moisture content sugar syrup containing, a small quantity of invert syrup that has been rapidly cooled so that the sugar crystals are small in size.
- French Bread: An unsweetened crusty bread, baked in a narrow strip and containing little or no shortening.
- Fruit Cake: A cake containing large amounts of fruits and nuts with only enough cake batter to bind them together.
- Germ: The part of seed from which new plant grows.
- Glace: Sugar so treated as to resemble ice.
- Gliadin: One of the two proteins comprising gluten which provides elasticity
- Glucose: A simple sugar made by action of acid or starch.
- Gluten: The elastic process mass that is formed when the protein material of the wheat flour is mixed with water.
- Glutenin: One of the two proteins comprising gluten, which gives strength.
- Graham Flour: Finely ground whole wheat flour.
- Graining: After boiling a sugar solution to the desired temperature, the solution will crystallize upon cooling. If cooling is slow, large crystals will form. Rapid cooling produces small crystals as well rapid mixing during cooling. Small fine crystals are desired in making fondant which is prepared with the process of cooling and mixing. The process is called graining.
- Greasing: Spreading a film of fat in a surface.
- Hearth: The heated baking surface of the floor of an oven.
- Humidity: Usually expressed as “Relative humidity” which is an expression of percent of moisture in air related to the total moisture capacity of that air at a particular temperature.
- Hydrogenated Oil: Oil that has been treated with hydrogen to convert it to a hardened form.
- Ice: To frost or put on an icing or frosting.
- Ingredients: Food material blended to give palatable products.
- Invert Sugar: A mixture of dextrose and levulose made by inverting sucrose with acid or enzyme.
- Lactose: The sugar of the milk.
- Lard: Rendered hog fat.
- Leavening: Raising or lightening by air, steam or gas (carbon dioxide). The agent for generating gas in a dough or batter is usually yeast or baking powder.
- Levulose: A simple sugar found in honey and fruits.
- Loaf-Cake: Cake baked in bread pans or similar deep containers.
- Macaroons: Small biscuits made from coconut or almond paste, sugar and egg whites.
- Make-up: Manual or mechanical manipulation of dough to provide desired size and shape.
- Malt Extract: A syrupy liquid obtained from malt mesh, a product obtained as a result of converting the starch of sugar.
- Marshmallow: A white confection of meringue like consistency.
- Marzipan: Almond paste used for modeling, masking and decoration.
- Masking: Act of covering with icing or frosting.
- Melting Point: The temperature at which a solid becomes liquid.
- Meringue: A white frothy mass of beaten egg white and sugar.
- Middlings: Granular particles of the endosperm of wheat made during grinding of grains in the mills.
- Mocha: A flavour combination of coffee and chocolate, but predominantly that of coffee.
- Moisture: Water content of a substance.
- Molasses: Light to dark brown syrup obtained in making cane sugar.
- Moulder: Machine that shapes dough pieces for various shapes.
- Old Doughs: Yeasted doughs that have become over fermented. This produces finished baked loaf dark in crumb colour, sour in flavour, low in volume, coarse in grain and tough in texture.
- Patent Flour: The clean flour made by grinding the choice portion of the inner portion of the wheat.
- Pie: Dessert with pastry bottom, fruit or cream filling and topped with meringue, whipped cream or pastry.
- Plasticity: The consistency of feel of shortening.
- Proof Box: Closed box or cabinet in which pans with molded and made up dough pieces are kept for final stage of fermentation. It should have provisions for controlled temperature and humidity.
- Puff Pastry: A pastry dough inter layered with butter or shortening to give flakiness. Leavened during baking by the internally generated steam.
- Rolling Pin: Smooth surfaced wood pieces for rolling dough.
- Quick Breads: Bread product baked from lean chemically leavened batter.
- Rolls: Small breads made from yeast leavened dough sometimes called buns, may be hard or soft crusted.
- Rope: A spoiling bacterial growth in bread experienced when the dough becomes infected with bacterial spores. Poor sanitation can result rope in bread.
- Royal Icing: Decorative frosting of cooked sugar and egg white.
- Scoring: Judging finished goods according to points of perfection, or to cut or slash the top surface of dough pieces.
- Shortening: Fat or oil used to tenderize baked goods or to fry products.
- Sifting: Pass through fine mesh for effective blending and to remove foreign or over size particles.
- Snaps: Small biscuits that run flat during baking and become crisp on cooling.
- Solidifying Point: Temperature at which liquid changes to a solid state.
- Slack Dough: Dough that is soft and extensible, but has lost its elasticity.
- Stabilizers: Commercial preparations for use in meringue, pie fillings, icing and marshmallows.
- Starch Water: A mixture of corn starch and water made by boiling together one or two tablespoons of corn starch and about a liter of water. This is used for brushing on bread to give a shine to the crust.
- Steam: Vapor formed and given off from heated water.
- Straight Flour: Flour containing the entire wheat berry excluding the bran and feed.
- Strong Flour: One that is suitable for the production of bread of good volume and quality.
- Corn Sugar-Dextrose: A form of sugar made from corn and readily fermentable.
- Sugarcane or Beet-Sucrose: Common and usually granulated sweetening agent
- Tart: Small pastries with heavy fruit filling or cream.
- Tempering: Adjusting temperature of ingredients to a certain degree.
- Texture: Describes the measure of silkiness of the interior structure of a baked product as sensed by the touch of the cut surface.
- Troughs: Large containers usually on wheels used for holing large masses of rising (fermenting) doughs.
- Vegetable Colour: Liquid or pastes of vegetable nature used for colouring.
- Vienna Colour: A hearth type bread with heavy crisp crust, sometimes finished with seed toppings.
- Wash: A liquid brush on the surface of an unbaked product. May be water, milk, starch solution, thin syrup of egg.
- Water Absorption: water required for obtaining bread dough of desired consistency. Flours vary in ability to absorb water. This depends on the age of flour, moisture content, wheat from which it is milled, storage conditions and milling process.
- Whip: A hand or mechanical beater of wire construction used to whip materials such as cream or egg whites to a frothy consistency.
- Yeast: A microscopic plant that reproduces by building and causes fermentation and the giving off carbon dioxide.
- Young doughs: Yeast dough that is under-fermented. This produces finished yeast goods, which are light in colour, tight in grain and low in volume.
- Zweibach: A toast made of bread or plain coffee cake dried in slow oven.
