history of baking essay

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• baking - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
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baking , process of cooking by dry heat, especially in some kind of oven. It is probably the oldest cooking method. Bakery products, which include bread , rolls, cookies , pies, pastries , and muffins, are usually prepared from flour or meal derived from some form of grain. Bread, already a common staple in prehistoric times, provides many nutrients in the human diet.

The earliest processing of cereal grains probably involved parching or dry roasting of collected grain seeds. Flavour, texture, and digestibility were later improved by cooking whole or broken grains with water , forming gruel or porridge . It was a short step to the baking of a layer of viscous gruel on a hot stone, producing primitive flat bread. More sophisticated versions of flat bread include the Mexican tortilla , made of processed corn, and the chapati of India , usually made of wheat .

Baking techniques improved with the development of an enclosed baking utensil and then of ovens, making possible thicker baked cakes or loaves. The phenomenon of fermentation , with the resultant lightening of the loaf structure and development of appealing flavours, was probably first observed when doughs or gruels, held for several hours before baking, exhibited spoilage caused by yeasts. Some of the effects of the microbiologically induced changes were regarded as desirable, and a gradual acquisition of control over the process led to traditional methods for making leavened bread loaves. Early baked products were made of mixed seeds with a predominance of barley, but wheat flour , because of its superior response to fermentation, eventually became the preferred cereal among the various cultural groups sufficiently advanced in culinary techniques to make leavened bread.

Brewing and baking were closely connected in early civilizations. Fermentation of a thick gruel resulted in a dough suitable for baking; a thinner mash produced a kind of beer. Both techniques required knowledge of the “mysteries” of fermentation and a supply of grain. Increasing knowledge and experience taught the artisans in the baking and brewing trades that barley was best suited to brewing, while wheat was best for baking.

By 2600 bce the Egyptians , credited with the first intentional use of leavening, were making bread by methods similar in principle to those of today. They maintained stocks of sour dough, a crude culture of desirable fermentation organisms, and used portions of this material to inoculate fresh doughs. With doughs made by mixing flour, water, salt, and leaven, the Egyptian baking industry eventually developed more than 50 varieties of bread, varying the shape and using such flavouring materials as poppy seed , sesame, and camphor. Samples found in tombs are flatter and coarser than modern bread.

The Egyptians developed the first ovens . The earliest known examples are cylindrical vessels made of baked Nile clay, tapered at the top to give a cone shape and divided inside by a horizontal shelflike partition. The lower section is the firebox, the upper section is the baking chamber. The pieces of dough were placed in the baking chamber through a hole provided in the top.

In the first two or three centuries after the founding of Rome , baking remained a domestic skill with few changes in equipment or processing methods. According to Pliny the Elder , there were no bakers in Rome until the middle of the 2nd century bce . As well-to-do families increased, women wishing to avoid frequent and tedious bread making began to patronize professional bakers, usually freed slaves. Loaves molded by hand into a spheroidal shape, generally weighing about a pound, were baked in a beehive-shaped oven fired by wood. Panis artopticius was a variety cooked on a spit, panis testuatis in an earthen vessel.

Although Roman professional bakers introduced technological improvements, many were of minor importance, and some were essentially reintroductions of earlier developments. The first mechanical dough mixer , attributed to Marcus Vergilius (sometimes spelled Virgilius) Eurysaces, a freed slave of Greek origin, consisted of a large stone basin in which wooden paddles, powered by a horse or donkey walking in circles, kneaded the dough mixture of flour, leaven, and water.

Guilds formed by the miller-bakers of Rome became institutionalized. During the 2nd century ce , under the Flavians, they were organized into a “college” with work rules and regulations prescribed by government officials. The trade eventually became obligatory and hereditary , and the baker became a kind of civil servant with limited freedom of action.

During the early Middle Ages , baking technology advances of preceding centuries disappeared, and bakers reverted to mechanical devices used by the ancient Egyptians and to more backward practices. But in the later Middle Ages the institution of guilds was revived and expanded. Several years of apprenticeship were necessary before an applicant was admitted to the guild; often an intermediate status as journeyman intervened between apprenticeship and full membership (master). The rise of the bakers’ guilds reflected significant advances in technique. A 13th-century French writer named 20 varieties of bread varying in shape, flavourings, preparation method, and quality of the meal used. Guild regulations strictly governed size and quality. But outside the cities bread was usually baked in the home. In medieval England rye was the main ingredient of bread consumed by the poor; it was frequently diluted with meal made from other cereals or leguminous seeds. Not until about 1865 did the cost of white bread in England drop below brown bread.

At that time improvements in baking technology began to accelerate rapidly, owing to the higher level of technology generally. Ingredients of greater purity and improved functional qualities were developed, along with equipment reducing the need for individual skill and eliminating hand manipulation of bread doughs. Automation of mixing, transferring, shaping, fermentation, and baking processes began to replace batch processing with continuous operations. The enrichment of bread and other bakery foods with vitamins and minerals was a major accomplishment of the mid-20th-century baking industry.

Flour , water, and leavening agents are the ingredients primarily responsible for the characteristic appearance, texture, and flavour of most bakery products. Eggs, milk , salt, shortening , and sugar are effective in modifying these qualities, and various minor ingredients may also be used.

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The History of Baking – Importance of Baking to Mankind

• The History of Baking – Importance of Baking to Mankind

What is Baking?

Baking is a form of cooking where you cook flour-based food under prolonged heating. An oven is generally used to bake food but there are a few other methods to bake food without an oven. Homestead Honey mentions a few ways of baking without oven . I experimented the baking without oven by baking cookies without oven .

Bread is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of baking. However, cookies, cakes, muffins , and many other foods are also popular in baking.

The history of Baking

The world’s oldest oven, around 6500 years old, was discovered in Croatia in 2014. Bread baking began in Ancient Greece around 600 BC. (Source Wikipedia )

Egyptians were pioneers in baking and the traces of their baking are as old as 2600 B.C. (Source Baking Times ). Egyptians were the one who started baking bread using yeast .

Baking and its Importance

Baking was traditionally done at home by women, generally for the family. Commercially, men used to bake in bakeries and restaurants. Baked goodies, especially bread are one of the most important parts of our day to day food.  Human beings have been baking for ages. The history of baking is deep enough to encourage you to start baking at home.

European and American cuisines have a high importance of baking. The cuisine looks incomplete without bread, cakes, pastries etc. that forms a major part of their food. In Asian countries, Chapati is the most common bread in the food. Chapati is one of the simplest forms of baking without an oven.

Advantages of Baking

Baking enhances the flavor and aroma of the food. For those who have been baking at home, they know what KitchenAid Artisan Mini 5Ksm3311Xbht I mean when I talk about the aroma of baking. Baking can expand the possibilities of making food healthier. People are moving from deep fried stuff to baked goodies.

Baking is no longer just all-purpose flour , white sugar and butter baked together. Health conscious people have taken baking to a different level. People now bake with millets, whole wheat flour , and multigrain flour. They avoid sugar and extract sweetness naturally. This Ragi cookies recipe with Jaggery is a fantastic example of the same.

History of  Baking Cake

The history of cakes dates back to ancient times. Initial cakes were way too different from today’s exotic cakes. The cakes in olden times were more bread-like with sugar or honey added to them. The word cake was derived from the Old Norse word “kaka”. Oxford dictionary traces the word “cake” back to the 13 th century.

Historian claims Europeans to have baked the first modern round cake with icing on it. Cakes are made from various combinations of flour, butter, shortening, eggs, sugar, honey , baking powder , and baking soda and flavoring agents. The Internet is full of cake recipes.

A typical question that people have asked time and again is why baking at home? For them buying bread from KitchenAid Artisan Mini 5Ksm3311Xbht the market is cheap and easy than doing it at home. The first article of this tutorial helps you understand why baking at home is important for you.

Doubts, questions, suggestion, please share in the comment box.

About Sonia Gupta

Sonia Gupta, a seasoned baker with a decade specializing in eggless baking. She is an award-winning Baking Instructor, Blogger, YouTuber & a Recipe Creator.

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The Origin of Baking: A Historical Exploration

Imagine a world without the aroma of freshly baked bread wafting through the air or the sweet indulgence of a perfectly baked cake . Baking is an essential part of our daily lives, but have you ever wondered about its origins and how it has evolved over time? Join us on a historical exploration as we delve into the fascinating world of baking.

Understanding the Concept of Baking

Before we delve into the historical aspects, let’s first understand what baking truly means. Baking is a cooking method that uses dry heat to transform raw ingredients into delicious and delectable treats. It involves combining ingredients such as flour, sugar, eggs, butter, and leavening agents, and subjecting them to controlled heat, resulting in a magical transformation.

Baking is much more than just a cooking technique – it is an art form that requires precision, patience, and creativity . The process of baking allows us to unlock the flavors and textures of ingredients, bringing forth a sensory experience that delights our palate.

Defining Baking: A Brief Overview

At its core, baking is the process of using heat to transform ingredients into a variety of baked goods. From bread and pastries to cakes and cookies, baking encompasses a wide range of delicious treats that have delighted humankind for centuries.

Baking involves precise measurements, careful techniques, and attention to detail. It is a harmonious blend of science and artistry, requiring a balance between ingredients, temperature, and timing to achieve the perfect result.

The Role of Baking in Different Cultures

Throughout history, baking has played a crucial role in various cultures around the world. Each culture has its unique culinary traditions and techniques, making the world of baking a diverse and rich tapestry.

From the flavorful bread of France to the aromatic pastries of Italy and the intricate desserts of the Middle East, baking has been deeply intertwined with cultural identity. It serves as a means of preserving tradition and sharing love through the joy of food.

In France, baking is considered an integral part of their culinary heritage. The art of French baking is renowned worldwide, with its flaky croissants, crusty baguettes, and delicate macarons. The French take great pride in their traditional baking techniques, passed down through generations, ensuring that each bite is a heavenly experience.

Italy, on the other hand, is known for its mouthwatering pastries and desserts. From the classic tiramisu to the iconic cannoli, Italian baking is a celebration of flavors and textures. The Italians believe in using the finest ingredients, such as fresh fruits, rich chocolates, and creamy cheeses , to create desserts that are both indulgent and unforgettable.

In the Middle East, baking is a cherished tradition that brings families and communities together. From the intricate filo pastries like baklava to the fragrant rosewater-infused desserts like maamoul, Middle Eastern baking is a symphony of flavors and aromas. These desserts are often made during special occasions and festivals, symbolizing love, hospitality, and togetherness.

The Ancient Beginnings of Baking

Long before the invention of modern ovens, our ancestors had already discovered the wonders of baking. The origins of baking can be traced back to ancient civilizations, where it played a vital role in their daily lives.

Baking in Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egyptians were early pioneers of baking. They developed a method of using hot ashes and sand to create a primitive form of ovens. These ovens allowed them to bake bread, a staple food in their diet. The Egyptians even had professional bakers who worked in temples and households to provide bread for the masses.

Bread held such significance in Egyptian culture that it was even used as currency and offered as an essential item for the afterlife. The Egyptians were masters of fermentation, using natural yeasts to leaven their bread, which resulted in light and fluffy loaves.

The Roman Influence on Baking

The Romans, renowned for their engineering marvels, further advanced the art of baking. They introduced enclosed masonry ovens, which were more efficient in retaining heat and produced a more consistent result.

Baking became a significant part of Roman life, and they developed various types of bread and pastries. The Roman bakers experimented with different grains, such as wheat and barley, and added honey, milk, and even herbs to enhance the flavors of their creations.

Not only did the Romans engineer better ovens, but they were also credited with developing the first professional baker’s guild, establishing the foundations of the modern baking profession.

The Middle Ages and Baking

The Middle Ages brought about significant changes in both society and baking techniques. Guilds emerged, and advancements in technology forever altered the landscape of baking.

The Introduction of Guilds

Guilds, associations of craftsmen and artisans, played a pivotal role in regulating baking during the Middle Ages. These guilds provided training, set quality standards, and ensured fair practices within the baking profession.

By introducing guilds, society acknowledged the importance of bakers and their essential role in nourishing the population. The baking profession became an esteemed craft, and bakers began to experiment with new ingredients and techniques.

The Evolution of Baking Techniques

The Middle Ages witnessed significant advancements in baking techniques. Bakers began incorporating additional ingredients, such as spices, fruits, and nuts, into their creations. They embraced new methods of fermentation, resulting in lighter and more flavorful bread.

Baking became an art form, with bakers competing to create the most elaborate designs and intricate patterns on their bread. These decorative loaves were often presented as symbols of social status and served at lavish banquets.

During this time, the art of pastry-making also emerged. Bakers began experimenting with pastry dough, creating delicacies such as tarts, pies, and flaky pastries. The Middle Ages marked a turning point in the history of baking, as it evolved from a basic nourishment technique to a culinary art.

The Renaissance and the Art of Baking

The Renaissance period brought forth a resurgence in the appreciation for baking. With newfound ingredients and techniques, bakers embraced creativity and pushed the boundaries of what was possible.

The Influence of Sugar

One of the most significant developments during the Renaissance was the widespread availability and use of sugar. This newfound ingredient revolutionized baking, as it added sweetness and complexity to a wide array of creations.

Bakers began experimenting with sugar in various forms, from crystallized sugar to syrups and caramel. It allowed them to create intricate decorations and elaborate desserts that delighted the taste buds and sparked a newfound love for pastries.

The Emergence of Pastry Chefs

The Renaissance saw the emergence of pastry chefs as a distinct profession. These skilled artisans dedicated their lives to perfecting the art of creating exquisite pastries and desserts.

Pastry chefs honed their skills through apprenticeships, learning the delicate balance of flavors, the artistry of presentation, and the precision required for perfect baking. Their creations graced the tables of royalty and nobility, elevating baking to an expression of luxury and refinement.

Baking in the Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution brought about sweeping changes in society, and baking was no exception. Technological advancements revolutionized the way we bake and gave rise to commercial bakeries.

The Impact of Technology on Baking

The introduction of ovens fueled by coal or gas brought newfound efficiency to baking. These ovens provided consistent heat and allowed bakers to produce large quantities of goods, catering to the growing demand.

Furthermore, the invention of mechanical mixers and other labor-saving devices made baking more accessible to a larger population. The industrialization of baking meant that delicious treats were available not just to the privileged few but to people from all walks of life.

The Rise of Commercial Bakeries

The demand for baked goods led to the establishment of commercial bakeries. These bakeries mass-produced bread, cakes, and pastries, catering to the needs of an ever-expanding urban population.

The rise of commercial bakeries not only satisfied the hunger for baked goods but also fostered the growth of new innovations and baking techniques. It laid the foundation for the modern baking industry, with countless bakeries creating a vast array of treats that bring delight to our lives.

Throughout history, baking has evolved from a basic survival technique to an art form that brings joy to our taste buds. The journey of baking is a testament to the creativity and ingenuity of humanity, where each culture and era has left its own unique imprint on this culinary tradition.

So the next time you indulge in a warm, freshly baked croissant or savor a slice of decadent cake, take a moment to appreciate the rich history behind it. Baking is not just about food – it is a celebration of our shared human experience and the artistry that transcends time.

Join the Baketivity Family and Continue the Tradition

As you reflect on the rich tapestry of baking history, why not bring this timeless art into your own home with Baketivity? Embrace the spirit of creativity, quality, and family bonding that has been cherished through the ages. Our baking kits are designed to create not just scrumptious treats, but also educational moments and lasting memories for you and your loved ones. Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned baker, Baketivity has something to offer for every skill level. Don’t just read about the evolution of baking—be a part of it. Join the Baking Club today and make history in your very own kitchen!

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From Ancient Egypt to Modern Kitchens: A Journey Through the History of Baking

By: Author Sarah Bridenstine

Posted on Last updated: August 14, 2024

Categories Baking Basics

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Maybe it’s your birthday. Perhaps you’re just craving something sweet.

Either way, you grab a cake mix, crack two eggs, add oil, pop it all in the oven, and bam—you’ve got a cake.

Even if you want to go the extra mile, baking a cake from scratch isn’t that difficult.

But a couple of hundred years ago? Oh, it was an ordeal.

Let’s check out how baking changed for the better!

Timeline of Top Baking Trends, Techniques, and Innovations

While historical baked goodies can be incredibly comforting, I won’t be showing you how to make any today.

This post is all about the context behind the historical techniques and trends.

Earliest Known Form of Baking: How Bread Came to Be

I’m willing to bet the first baked goodie ever was bread.

But our ancestors didn’t start making artisanal loaves right off the bat. Instead, things likely started with the simple processing of wild grass grains.

Maybe they would roast and grind the seeds. Then, perhaps they tried adding water and cooking wheat grains over a flame to make a sort of porridge or paste.

Soon, they realized that when a thin layer of this paste is set over a fire, it hardens and forms flatbread.

All these were baby steps that brought our ancestors closer to bread-making as we know it today.

How long ago was the first step?

Archeologists can’t tell for sure. For a while, they thought bread first popped up around the Neolithic times.

However, they found 14,000-year-old breadcrumbs . So, it’s safe to say humans have been baking for a really long time!

Ancient Egypt: Yeast, Molds, and the Bread That Helped Build Pyramids

Although bread was around for a while, many people agree that ancient Egyptians pushed baking forward.

They made ceramic bell-shaped bread molds , used yeast as far back as 1,500 BCE , and documented their baking skills through hieroglyphics.

Fun Fact: Someone actually harvested yeast from artifacts , studied the baking techniques, and made bread ancient-Egypt-style!

Roman Empire: Bakers’ Guild and Stamped Goods

For a while, baking was considered a domestic skill in Rome. However, it was pretty tedious, and well-to-do homemakers wanted to free their time.

Enter baking as a profession.

By 168 BCE , Rome had its first Bakers’ Guild, the Collegium Pistorum!

Bakers in the Guild were recognized as skilled artisans with specialties. They could stamp their names into their creations (see: the 2,000-something-year-old preserved loaf found in Pompeii).

They also got to pass the trade to their children.

That said, things weren’t always jolly for the bakers.

You couldn’t just withdraw from the Guild and pursue a different career—once a baker, always a baker.

Middle Ages: Baker’s Dozen and a Social Divide

Because refining flour was tricky, light-colored baked goods were a luxury few could afford during the Middle Ages. Most folks had to settle for rye and black bread.

But there was still an attempt at fairness via the baker’s dozen .

You see, short weighting was common among dishonest bakers—so much so that people needed laws to put an end to the scam.

A baker had to add one extra loaf on every order of a dozen loaves to guarantee the customers were getting their money’s worth.

Colonial America: Gauging Oven Temp by Hand

You can argue all you want about how annoying it is to have an oven that runs hot or cold. Still, the temperature control knob is a luxury bakers didn’t always have.

Housewives in colonial America had to open the oven door and stick their hands inside to gauge the temperature. Ouch!

18th Century: Cake in American Cookery

Baking and cake-making became more accessible with time.

In the 1700s, Amelia Simmons published the first American cookbook and included recipes for queen’s cake, buckwheat cake, and plump cake (a total showstopper).

But it wasn’t till the 19th century that cake became the light, spongy dessert we know and love today.

19th Century: Commercial Yeast, Baking Powder, Roller Mills, Oh My!

The mid-19th century brought some game-changers:

• The first standardized commercial yeast hit the market.
• Baking powder was invented.
• Steam-powered roller milling made white flour more accessible.

Out of all three events, I’d have to say that baking powder was the most revolutionary. It meant that bakers had better control of the leavening process of their cakes.

20th Century: Gas Ovens and Cake Mixes

By the early 1900s, most households had gas ovens . But they also had another nifty box—the cake mix .

Suddenly, baking cakes became that much more convenient!

21st Century: Baking for Fun, Aesthetics, and Gut Health

Nowadays, baking is an art form, a hobby, and a science. To really study baking , you might cross paths with chemistry, 3D printing, and marketing.

But even if you’re a casual baker, you must have noticed healthy-eating trends taking over, from gluten-free to paleo.

Final Thoughts

Don’t you feel lucky to be born at a time when baking is super accessible?

I’m grateful that I get to enjoy the smell and taste of freshly baked goodies in my kitchen, with zero manual milling or bulky mud ovens needed!

Sarah is the founder of Baking Kneads, LLC, a blog sharing guides, tips, and recipes for those learning how to bake. Growing up as the daughter of a baker, she spent much of her childhood learning the basics in a local bakery.

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The History Of Baking: From Ancient Techniques To Modern Trends

Step into the fascinating world of baking as you explore the rich history that spans across centuries. From the humble beginnings of ancient civilizations to the innovative techniques of modern times, this article takes you on a delightful journey through the evolution of baking. Discover how ancient bread-making methods have paved the way for the delectable pastries we savor today, and learn about the trends that continue to shape the world of baking. Get ready to unravel the secrets behind your favorite treats and gain a newfound appreciation for the art of baking.

Table of Contents

Ancient Origins of Baking

Baking can be traced back to prehistoric times, where early humans discovered the transformative power of fire. While the exact origins of baking are unclear, evidence suggests that it emerged around 30,000 years ago. Prehistoric bakers would mix ground grains and water to create a basic dough, which was then cooked on hot stones or in simple ovens made from clay or mud. These early baking techniques laid the foundation for the culinary art form that we know today.

The ancient Egyptians played a significant role in the development of baking. They are credited with inventing the first oven, known as the “tannur,” which was a simple, dome-shaped structure made from clay or brick. The Egyptians also pioneered the use of yeast in baking, adding it to their dough to create light and fluffy bread. The practice of baking became an integral part of their culture, with bread being a staple food in their daily diet.

Greek and Roman civilizations also made important contributions to baking. The Greeks were known for their various types of bread, including flatbreads and loaves. They introduced the concept of using olive oil in baking, which added flavor and moisture to their bread. The Romans, on the other hand, focused on improving the quality of their bread by developing milling techniques that resulted in finely ground flour. They also introduced enclosed ovens with chimneys, allowing for better control of temperature and airflow during baking.

Medieval Baking Techniques

During the medieval period, baking techniques underwent further advancements. The introduction of leavening agents, such as sourdough and yeast, revolutionized the baking process. These agents helped dough rise and become lighter, resulting in bread with a fluffy texture. Bakers during this time experimented with different fermentation techniques to enhance the flavor and texture of their bread.

The rise of baker’s guilds in medieval Europe also had a significant impact on baking. These guilds, which were organizations of professional bakers, regulated the trade and ensured quality standards. They provided apprenticeships and training to aspiring bakers, passing down the knowledge and techniques of the craft from one generation to the next. The guilds also played a role in establishing baking as a respected profession, contributing to the development of baking as an art form.

The Crusades, a series of religious wars fought between the 11th and 13th centuries, had a profound influence on baking. Bakers encountered various new ingredients and techniques during their encounters with different cultures. They brought back spices, sugar, and exotic fruits from the Middle East, which greatly expanded the flavor palette of European baking. The Crusades also resulted in the exchange of baking techniques and recipes, leading to the incorporation of new ingredients and flavors in traditional European baking.

Baking in the Renaissance and Enlightenment

The Renaissance and Enlightenment periods witnessed further innovations in baking tools and equipment. Specifically, the invention of the mechanical dough kneader and the use of cast iron and copper molds revolutionized baking techniques. These advancements allowed bakers to produce more consistent and intricately designed pastries and cakes. The development of refined techniques, such as creaming butter and sugar together, also led to lighter and fluffier baked goods.

During the Renaissance and Enlightenment, monasteries and convents played a crucial role in baking. These religious institutions were often centers of innovation and experimentation when it came to baking. Monks and nuns developed new recipes, perfected baking techniques, and shared their knowledge with the wider community. Their attention to detail and dedication to quality resulted in the creation of exquisite pastries and breads that are still admired today.

Industrial Revolution and the Birth of Modern Baking

The Industrial Revolution marked a turning point in the history of baking. Advancements in baking technology, such as the invention of the steam-powered oven, allowed for mass production of baked goods. This led to a significant increase in the availability and variety of baked goods, making them more accessible to the general population.

The impact of the Industrial Revolution extended beyond technology. It also brought about changes in society and consumer preferences. As people moved to urban areas in search of work, the demand for convenient and affordable food options grew. This led to the birth of the first commercial bakeries, which catered to the needs of a rapidly expanding urban population. Industrialization also led to the development of standardized recipes and production processes, ensuring consistency and uniformity in baked goods.

The Evolution of Baking Ingredients

The evolution of baking ingredients has played a crucial role in shaping the art of baking. The introduction of baking powder and baking soda in the 19th century revolutionized leavening methods. These chemical leavening agents provided a quick and reliable way to make dough rise, eliminating the need for lengthy fermentation processes. Baking powder and baking soda also contributed to the development of light and fluffy cakes, cookies, and biscuits.

The refinement of flour production was another significant milestone in baking history. Advances in milling techniques and the introduction of roller mills resulted in finely ground flour, free from impurities. This improved the texture and quality of baked goods, making them more appealing to consumers.

In the late 19th century, the invention of chemical leavening agents, such as cream of tartar and ammonium carbonate, further expanded the range of baking possibilities. These agents provided a more controlled and consistent leavening process, allowing bakers to achieve specific textures and flavors in their creations.

Regional Baking Traditions

Baking traditions vary greatly across different regions, each with its unique techniques and specialties. French pastry and artisanal baking are renowned worldwide for their elegance and precision. The French have perfected the art of creating delicate pastries, such as croissants and éclairs, that require meticulous attention to detail.

Italian breadmaking tradition is deeply rooted in history and tradition. Italians are known for their diverse range of breads, from the classic ciabatta to regional specialties like focaccia and panettone. The use of high-quality ingredients, such as olive oil and durum wheat flour, gives Italian bread a distinct flavor and texture.

German baking is famous for its pretzels and Christmas treats. Pretzels, with their unique twisted shape and chewy texture, are a beloved snack in Germany. During the holiday season, Germans indulge in a variety of festive treats, such as stollen and gingerbread cookies, which have become popular worldwide.

Baking During the World Wars

The World Wars posed significant challenges to baking due to rationing and limited availability of ingredients. Shortages of staples like flour, sugar, and butter forced bakers to be resourceful and inventive. They had to find substitutes for traditional ingredients, such as using mashed potatoes or applesauce as replacements for fat in cakes. Baking became a way for communities to come together and support one another during these difficult times.

Innovation in baking was particularly evident during these wars, as bakers experimented with alternative ingredients and techniques. Eggless cakes and bread made with powdered milk became common, as eggs and fresh milk were scarce. Despite the hardships, baking provided comfort and a sense of normalcy, reminding people of better times and offering a moment of respite during the turmoil of war.

Baking in the Modern Era

The modern era has witnessed a resurgence in home baking, with more people rediscovering the joy and satisfaction of creating their baked goods. The rise of cooking shows and celebrity chefs on television has inspired a whole new generation of bakers, fostering creativity and experimentation in the kitchen. Baking has become a form of self-expression and a means of sharing love and warmth with family and friends.

In recent years, there has been a growing trend towards healthier baking. With increasing awareness of dietary restrictions and preferences, bakers are exploring alternatives to traditional ingredients. Sugar substitutes, gluten-free flours, and plant-based alternatives are becoming more widely used in baking, catering to a wider range of dietary needs.

Globalization and Fusion Baking

The influence of global cuisines on baking has become more pronounced in recent years. Bakers are incorporating flavors and techniques from around the world into their creations, resulting in exciting fusion baking. Traditional recipes are being reinvented with a modern twist, combining different culinary traditions to create unique and delicious treats.

The rise of social media influencers has also had a significant impact on baking. Photos and videos of beautifully crafted pastries and cakes have become viral sensations, inspiring people to try their hand at baking. Social media platforms provide a platform for bakers to share their creations, exchange ideas, and connect with fellow baking enthusiasts from around the globe.

The Future of Baking

Technological advancements continue to shape the future of baking. Innovative baking tools and equipment, such as precision temperature control ovens and 3D printing for intricate cake decorations, are pushing the boundaries of what is possible in the kitchen. These advancements allow bakers to unleash their creativity and elevate their creations to new heights.

Sustainable and eco-friendly baking practices are also gaining traction. With increased awareness of environmental impact, bakers are looking for ways to reduce waste and minimize their carbon footprint. From sourcing local and organic ingredients to choosing energy-efficient baking equipment, sustainability is becoming an integral part of the baking industry.

As the world becomes more connected, exploring new flavors and techniques from different cultures will continue to be a driving force in the evolution of baking. The fusion of culinary traditions will lead to exciting and unexpected combinations, offering endless opportunities for bakers to experiment and delight their taste buds.

In conclusion, the history of baking is a rich tapestry of tradition, innovation, and cultural exchange. From humble beginnings in ancient times to the modern baking trends of today, baking has evolved into an art form that connects people across borders and generations. As we look to the future, the possibilities in the world of baking are endless, promising new flavors, techniques, and experiences to savor and share. So, get your apron on and embark on your own baking journey – the sweet rewards await!

What is the history of baking?

The History of Baking

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The Origins of Baking

Baking has a long and rich history that dates back to ancient times. The earliest evidence of baking comes from the ancient Egyptians, who are believed to be the first culture to make bread using yeast. They used an early form of a stone oven to bake bread, and it soon became a staple in their diet. As time progressed, the practice of baking spread to other cultures, such as the Greeks and Romans, who further refined the art of baking. Baking also became an important part of religious ceremonies and celebrations, with various types of bread being used as offerings to the gods.

The Middle Ages and Renaissance

During the Middle Ages, baking continued to evolve, with the development of new techniques and ingredients. Bakers guilds were established in Europe, where members would share their knowledge and skills. The Renaissance period saw a surge in baking innovation, with the introduction of new ingredients such as sugar and butter, as well as the creation of intricate pastries and desserts. Baking became a symbol of wealth and status, with elaborate cakes and confections being served at royal banquets and feasts.

The Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution brought about significant changes in the way baking was done. The invention of the steam oven and the mass production of flour made baking more accessible to the general population. Bakeries began to spring up in urban areas, and bread became a dietary staple for people of all social classes. The 20th century saw further advancements in baking technology, with the invention of the electric oven and the introduction of pre-packaged baking mixes. Baking became a popular household activity, with families spending time together in the kitchen, creating delicious treats.

The Modern Era

Today, baking is a beloved pastime for many people around the world. With the rise of cooking shows and social media, baking has become a cultural phenomenon, with people sharing their recipes and creations online. Baking has also become more inclusive, with a focus on gluten-free, vegan, and other dietary options. The availability of high-quality ingredients and specialty baking equipment has made it easier than ever for home bakers to create professional-quality goods. Whether it’s a simple loaf of bread or an elaborate cake, the history of baking continues to evolve as people find new and creative ways to express themselves in the kitchen.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. what are the earliest known baked goods.

The earliest known baked goods were found in ancient Egyptian tombs, dating back to around 4,000 BC. They included various types of bread and pastries, which were used as offerings to the deceased.

2. When did baking become a popular household activity?

Baking became a popular household activity during the Industrial Revolution, when the mass production of flour and the invention of the steam oven made it more accessible to the general population.

3. How has baking technology evolved over the years?

Baking technology has evolved significantly over the years, with the invention of the electric oven, pre-packaged baking mixes, and specialty baking equipment making it easier for home bakers to create professional-quality goods.

4. What role did baking play in ancient religious ceremonies?

Baking played a significant role in ancient religious ceremonies, with various types of bread being used as offerings to the gods in cultures such as the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans.

5. What are some examples of baked goods from the Renaissance period?

During the Renaissance period, intricate pastries and desserts such as tarts, pies, and elaborate cakes were created, often served at royal banquets and feasts as a symbol of wealth and status.

6. How has baking become more inclusive in recent times?

Baking has become more inclusive in recent times, with a focus on gluten-free, vegan, and other dietary options, making it easier for people with various dietary restrictions to enjoy baked goods.

7. What are some popular baking trends in the modern era?

Popular baking trends in the modern era include the use of high-quality ingredients, specialty baking equipment, and a focus on creativity and self-expression in the kitchen, as seen through the rise of cooking shows and social media.

8. What are some of the health benefits of baking?

Baking has been shown to have various health benefits, such as providing a creative outlet, reducing stress, and promoting mindfulness and relaxation through the process of creating and enjoying delicious treats.

9. How has social media impacted the culture of baking?

Social media has had a significant impact on the culture of baking, with people sharing their recipes and creations online, creating a sense of community and inspiration for home bakers around the world.

10. What are some of the challenges of baking at home?

Some of the challenges of baking at home may include obtaining high-quality ingredients, mastering new techniques, and finding the time and motivation to experiment and create in the kitchen.

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About Julie Howell

Julie has over 20 years experience as a writer and over 30 as a passionate home cook; this doesn't include her years at home with her mother, where she thinks she spent more time in the kitchen than out of it. She loves scouring the internet for delicious, simple, heartwarming recipes that make her look like a MasterChef winner. Her other culinary mission in life is to convince her family and friends that vegetarian dishes are much more than a basic salad. She lives with her husband, Dave, and their two sons in Alabama.

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Baking History and Traditions

During this third week of Bake for Family Fun Month, we like to reflect on this history and traditions of baking. If you haven’t already, check out our blog post on Why Baking History and Traditions Are Important . It’s a very informative article.

Baking has been a staple of human culture for thousands of years, with evidence of bread-making dating back to the Neolithic period. Over time, the process of baking has evolved and been influenced by various cultures, technologies, and ingredients. In this blog post, we’ll explore the history of baking and how technology has changed the process.

The earliest evidence of bread-making comes from ancient Egypt, where flatbreads were made using barley and emmer wheat. The process involved grinding the grains into a flour, mixing it with water and yeast, and then baking the dough over an open flame. This process was slow and labor-intensive, with bread-making being primarily done by women in households.

As baking became more widespread, advancements in technology allowed for larger-scale production. In ancient Rome, bakers used large ovens to bake bread for the entire city. These ovens were heated by wood fires and were able to bake hundreds of loaves at a time.

During the Middle Ages, bakers began to experiment with new ingredients and techniques. Spices, fruits, and nuts were added to bread, and different types of bread were developed, such as sourdough and rye. The introduction of the windmill in the 12th century also made it easier to grind grains into flour, making bread-making more efficient.

In the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution brought significant changes to baking. The invention of the steam-powered oven allowed for even more significant production, and the mass production of bread became possible. Bakeries were no longer limited to small-scale operations, and bread became more widely available and affordable.

Today, technology continues to influence the baking industry. Modern ovens are often equipped with digital controls and convection fans for even baking, and ingredients such as pre-packaged yeast and flour mixes make baking more accessible than ever.

Now, let’s try an historical baking recipe to get a taste of the past. Here’s a recipe for Medieval English Bread , a loaf that would have been made during the Middle Ages:

Ingredients:

• 4 cups of bread flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast

Instructions:

– In a large mixing bowl, combine the bread flour, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and sugar.

– In a separate bowl, combine the warm water and active dry yeast. Let it sit for 5 minutes until it becomes foamy.

– Pour the yeast mixture into the dry ingredients and mix well until a dough forms.

– Knead the dough on a floured surface for 10 minutes until it becomes smooth and elastic.

– Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl and cover it with a damp cloth. Let it rise in a warm place for 1-2 hours until it has doubled in size.

– Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

– Punch the dough down and shape it into a round loaf.

– Place the loaf on a lightly greased baking sheet and let it rise for another 30 minutes.

– Bake the bread in the preheated oven for 30-35 minutes until it is golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom. Let the bread cool on a wire rack before slicing and serving.

– This recipe yields a dense, flavorful loaf of bread that would have been a staple food in the Middle Ages. Try serving it with butter or honey for a delicious and historically accurate snack.

Expanded Learning

If you’d like to discuss this topic further in your classroom or community program, consider downloading the lesson plan Everybody Bakes Bread . In this unit of study, students will learn the following:

– Identify a variety of breads and the countries and grains associated with each.

– List bread’s human nutritional values.

– State bread’s basic ingredients and their functions.

– Conduct a bread baking ingredient “farm to mixing bowl” information search.

– Use dry and liquid baking tools and scale to both measure ingredients and portion dough.

– Plan and bake a bread for family, class, or community service. – Read and share a bread story with a younger family or team member.

In today’s fast-paced world, traditional family recipes are more important than ever. They remind us of the simple, comforting pleasures of home-cooked meals and help us to slow down and connect with the people and traditions that matter most to us. Thank you for relying on the Home Baking Association as your source for baking resources and lesson plans. Visit our Baking Education section for more info.

baking history , baking traditions

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Dr. Oetker Stories

The History of Baking

The pharmacist Dr. August Oetker made a decisive contribution to making baking easier and more successful with his Backin. We take you on a journey through the history of baking.

17.5.2024 • History

For over 130 years, Dr. Oetker has stood primarily for baking and guaranteed enjoyment - always focused on the wishes and needs of our consumers. On International Baking Day on May 17, we ask ourselves: How did it all begin? When did mankind start baking and when did cakes come into existence? This takes us far back into the past:

From Bread to Cake – The History of Baking

Thousands of years have passed before the type of baking we know today. Over 6,000 years ago, the Egyptians were already using yeast to loosen bread dough. The Old Testament also mentions the art of loosening dough when making bread with sourdough and yeast.

The ancient Egyptians revered grain and its processing into bread and pastries as a sacred art. The bread was offered as a sacrifice to the gods. The pastries were given to the deceased on their journey to the afterlife. They were baked on hot stones or in hot ashes.

Until the 19th century, baking focused in large parts of the population on bread making and thus on the supply of this staple food. Eating cake was a pure luxury that only nobles, princes and kings could afford, if at all.

It was only with increasing industrialization and growing prosperity in the 19th century that baking became more accessible to the middle classes. However, home baking was still very laborious for housewives, if they could afford it. Households were in no way equipped with suitable ovens comparable to those of today. Instead, people were forced to take the dough they made themselves to the baker, who had a suitable oven, or to the communal bakehouse in the village on certain baking days.

1893: Original Backin is Introduced

It was not only the baking process itself that was laborious for a long time. The preparation of the dough also presented some challenges. Rising was not guaranteed, as suitable leavening agents were neither available or reliable. Although baking powder had been available since around the middle of the 19th century, its quality varied greatly and its use often led to an undesirable aftertaste. In 1893, the Bielefeld pharmacist Dr. August Oetker achieved the decisive breakthrough with his baking powder Backin. His product was easy to use, guaranteed to succeed and absolutely tasteless. With this, Oetker laid the foundations for his company's success. Thanks to technological advances, baking developed into a commercial industry in the 20th century. Automated machines made it possible to produce baked goods on a large scale and sell them in supermarkets and bakery chains.

The forms and motives of home baking changed again and again over the course of the 20th century with its two world wars and changing social conditions. The change in the role of women in family, work and leisure played a decisive role in this. The desire for self-determination and self-realization, as well as the increasing professional activity of women, left less time for household tasks such as baking. This led to a growing demand for modern products that could save time and effort.

1971: The first range of baking mixes is launched in Germany

The first Dr. Oetker baking mixes were introduced in 1971 with nut cake and marble cake. Due to growing demand, these rather simple box cakes were soon joined by new variants and more sophisticated cakes and cake mixes as well as dough mixes for creative baking.

1972: Whipped cream: a low-calorie and low-fat alternative to conventional whipped cream (82% less fat)

1977: introduction of mixi box cake mix, which could be mixed with eggs and liquid directly in the tin and then baked..

The aspect of making work easier and saving time also led to the introduction of a small box cake mix in 1977, which could be baked directly in the tin: "Mixi". In 1989, baking mixes specifically for the microwave were introduced to make baking even easier.

1989: Baking mixes for the microwave

1999: launch of the “trend baking ideas” range mole cake: “baking mix with the highest annual sales of all time”, 2011: dr. oetker takes over the decorating range from schwartauer werke. .

A total of 67 items form a varied portfolio that can be used to transform cakes and pastries into absolute eye-catchers in no time at all. 

2018: The trendy "Mermaid" baking mix not only enchants children. It is available in stores for a short time. 

2022: now even the popular classics, muffins and brownies, are also easy to make vegan. love it is the first vegan range of baking mixes from dr. oetker., 2024: a breakthrough in german retail. dr. oetker's low-fat black cocoa impresses with its intense, black color and naturally colors doughs or creams..

Every year, we launch creative, delicious and innovative baking and decorating products worldwide. For lots of baking fun and for everyone!

Discover all press releases on new baking and decorating products

Current baking trends and tips from our experts.

Distillations magazine

Stress baking and the comfort of connection.

Baking homemade bread anchors us to millennia-long traditions.

What is it about a loaf of homemade bread that’s so appealing? Is it the loaf itself—the golden surface crackling between your hands, the steam that rises from its center? Or is it something in the process: the gentle rhythm to kneading, the elastic give-and-take of dough, the sense of sinking into the moment? It might be the sense of accomplishment—that moment when the flour is dusted away and the kitchen smells rich and yeasty. Or maybe it’s the breaking of bread, the sharing and nourishing, that touches us most deeply.

There are plenty of reasons why homemade bread feels like the ultimate comfort food, especially now that “stress-baking” has become a way of life for many socially distanced Americans. Our social media feeds are punctuated by images of rustic homemade sourdough loaves, tantalizing quarantine cookies, and the occasional baking “fail.” In the high-anxiety environment of the coronavirus pandemic, these traditional and comforting—but time-consuming—methods of food production have abruptly risen in visibility and importance. Their benefits are easy to understand. Amid uncertainty, cooking for yourself or your loved ones creates tangible results; and with more time spent in our own kitchens, the slow processes of rising, proofing, and maintaining dough “starters” can become pleasurable exercises in mindfulness, keeping our thoughts in the present moment.

If quarantine has driven you to experiment with sourdough starter, you’re in venerable company. Pliny the Elder, a 1st-century Roman polymath, described methods used by bakers to make their sourdough-like starter in his Natural History :

Our species’ relationship with starters, and specifically with the yeasts that power them, goes back even further, to prehistory. Leavened bread—as opposed to flatbreads—likely emerged in ancient Egypt, which was also a center for early beer brewing. (Egyptian workers were often paid in bread and beer.) Yeast was considered such an important part of the ancient diet that the 2nd-century physician Galen, best known for his theory of the bodily humors , claimed that “whatever is completely without yeast is of use to no one.”

But leavened bread is more than a tasty throwback: it’s a reminder that cooking is chemistry. Baking is part of a complex system that includes chemical and thermal reactions, biology and bacteria—a system that modern foodways have largely disconnected us from. Eating store-bought bread doesn’t require us to understand the reactions happening in our mixing bowl. But the more we bake, the more we understand the actions and contributions of each individual ingredient, the importance of measurement, the rigor of process, and even the role of documentation: all elements of scientific inquiry. We’re actively learning and experimenting and in the process reclaiming once-common knowledge through our problem-solving.

We need look no further than our ancient friend yeast for an example of this process. Recent shortages of commercially processed yeast —the domesticated strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae —have led more-experimental home bakers to seek out “wild” yeast as their leavening agent. These single-celled organisms consume sugars and excrete carbon dioxide and alcohol as by-products, meaning that they are perfect leavening agents in bread baking and a source of natural fermentation for beer and wine. Wild yeast is present in our environment on a host of different surfaces—grains, fruit skins, and even human skin. Harvesting yeast can be as simple as leaving a bowl of flour and water on a kitchen counter. Naturally occurring yeasts are thought to lend food and drink more complex flavors and even a characteristic tang, hence the term sour dough.

Pliny’s note about using starter left over from bread “made the day before” reminds us that baking bread was a daily chore in a world without refrigeration. Most bread baking in ancient Rome was done in communal or commercial ovens. Working-class Romans, especially city dwellers, didn’t have kitchens: they lived in cramped, multistory apartment buildings called insula . Quickly and cheaply constructed from timber frames, insula had a nasty habit of catching fire and collapsing, and were therefore built without kitchens, ovens, or fireplaces. Romans grabbed their daily bread at bakeries and snagged heartier fare at thermopolia , or hot-food stands. Archaeologists have found numerous thermopolia in the preserved ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum, identifiable by their distinctive long concrete counters with circular depressions, designed to keep cooked foods warm; the setup was not unlike a modern buffet line. These market stalls sold roasted meat, baked cheeses, or hearty lentil stews: antiquity’s answer to fast food.

In medieval and early modern Europe bread was a core dietary staple for both rich and poor, but making it remained the province of professionals. Few bread recipes were recorded during this period; most chroniclers of domestic life assumed their readers would buy, rather than bake, their daily bread. Not until the 17th century did recipes appear in print, with one of the first found in Gervase Markham’s The English Huswife , published around 1615.

Since beer and bread were two of the most important foodstuffs, they were widely regulated. Much of our surviving knowledge of the breads sold and eaten during this period come from assize laws, which set standards for quality and weight and capped the price at which loaves could be sold. In England an assize statute introduced around 1266 identified four primary types of bread—Simnel, Wastrel, Cocket, and Treet—that were ranked by weight, lightest to heaviest, as well as by quality, coarsest to finest. Much like the assize laws, Markham names three primary categories of bread, but he also indicates their typical consumption by social class. A coarse brown bread made with peas, rye, and barley flour was described as suitable for peasants and laborers; next came a more refined bread made of wheat flour, intended for middle-class merchants and their ilk; and finally an extra-fine, fluffy white bread, which was reserved for nobility . . . and racehorses. (Markham’s culinary expertise was apparently matched by his fame as a horse trainer.)

Before the 18th century, standards for measurement varied widely between regions and industries, and most written recipes used comparative references to size and shape rather than exact weight or volume. A recipe might call for “a lump of butter the size of a thumb” or “a wedge of cheese two fingers wide.” Likewise, without timers or temperature dials, many recipes relied on their readers’ knowledge of familiar songs or prayers and their long experience with managing cooking fires. Modern cooks would be stumped by instructions to “recite ten verses” over “ash-smothered coals,” while a 17th-century reader wouldn’t have batted an eyelash. The common measuring cup, a cornerstone of the contemporary baker’s world, didn’t make its appearance until 1896. Fannie Merritt Farmer, a pioneer in late-19th-century American domestic-science education, popularized the modern cup and spoon system as well as the idea of “level” measurement, meaning that containers of ingredients were to be leveled off rather than heaped, which created greater specificity and uniformity for her recipes. Standard measurements combined with other innovations, such as baking powder (invented in 1843) and the electric stove (exhibited at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair), meant that home baking was primed for a major boom.

Bakers’ changing tools and recipes were also shaped by changing ingredients. Once again, our loyal partner in leavening—good old yeast—was at the center of things. Before the 19th century many bakers harvested their yeast from barm, a yeasty foam layer that formed on top of fermenting beer vats. But changes to brewing technology decreased the availability of barm and pushed bakers to cultivate their own strains. Around 1850, Viennese bakers developed a form of “press” yeast that was skimmed from a fermented dough starter, then either preserved as a yeast “cream”—a mix of the yeast and its liquid growth medium—or rinsed and pressed into yeast cakes that could be revived with flour and water. (In that same decade, the famed French pathologist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur revealed that yeast are in fact living, single-celled organisms whose active digestion is key to fermentation. Until his discovery most scientists had assumed that decay produced fermentation; Pasteur’s microscope revealed that yeast’s breakdown of sugar and starch and production of carbon dioxide relied on the action of living cells rather than the decomposition of dead ones.

The Vienna process gained popularity in the United States during the 1876 Centennial Exposition when Hungarian-Jewish immigrants Charles Louis Fleischmann, his brother Maximillian, and their business partner James Groff exhibited a model bakery under the banner of the Fleischmann Yeast Company . The same company’s Active Dry Yeast, a shelf-stable granulated form invented during World War II, quickly became a best seller thanks to its longer shelf life and ease of use. Fleischmann’s laboratory-cultivated yeast strains were selected for their consistent performance, sweeter taste (as compared to barms or starters), and quick rising action. Packaged yeast freed both professional and home bakers from the need to maintain starters, but it also led to a major change in flavor: the new strains lacked the characteristic sour tang of wild yeasts. The specialty loaves we now call sourdough are much closer to what 19th-century Americans called their daily bread.

Not everyone shares the need to knead, and cooking has never been just a pleasant hobby. Especially for poor women, servants, and enslaved people, it was and, in some cases, still is an endless drudgery. Our current fad for slow, thoughtful, demanding cooking methods is in a sense an ironic contrast to the 19th and 20th centuries’ emphasis on labor-saving kitchen devices and preprocessed foods. While canned goods had been cutting meal preparation time since the 1860s, the rapid expansion of supermarkets between the 1940s and 1950s meant that American consumers (at least of the middle-class, suburban variety) were increasingly buying nationally branded processed foods, such as Swanson’s TV dinners. These frozen meals were introduced around 1953 and could be heated and eaten in their own disposable, oven-safe tray.

While the ancient Romans may have invented takeout, 1950s and 1960s entrepreneurs perfected it, applying emerging industrial technologies—chemical preservatives, assembly lines, and high-volume pressure cookers—to fast-food production. This era’s bread of choice? Plastic-wrapped, pre-sliced white bread made from bleached flour—Wonder Bread. The bread first appeared in 1921, but its sales boomed after a 1940s advertising campaign promised consumers added nutrients, such as thiamin and riboflavin. (These nutrients exist in whole-grain flour but are stripped out by the bleaching process.) White bread’s success was fueled by a mix of convenience and marketing, as well as an undercurrent of American prejudice. Traditional, immigrant-run bakeries were often falsely portrayed as less sanitary than the gleaming factories churning out shrink-wrapped, snowy-white loaves.

White bread became a lightning rod for the counterculture movements of the 1960s and 1970s, not only for the food’s lack of nutritional value and its industrial origins, but also for what it represented: homogeneity and conformity. Quicksilver Times , an underground activist magazine , called on readers to reject corporate food along with corporate ethics: “Don’t eat white; eat right; and fight.” The growth of the environmental movement, along with increased American awareness of global food traditions, also led many to seek out unprocessed, organically produced “hippie foods,” such as tofu, flax seed, and ancient grains, as well as—you guessed it—homemade whole-wheat bread. But after almost two decades of dominance by store-bought bread, many young freethinkers found themselves making homemade brown bread that was as dense as a brick and just about as tasty. Part of the problem lay in the core difference between white and whole-grain wheat flours: wheat bran, when not removed during the refining process, cuts through the longer strands of gluten that form in dough, leaving the finished loaf less chewy and airy. Enter 1971’s Tassajara Bread Book , written by Edward Espe Brown, a young cook living at a Northern California Zen monastery. Brown’s best seller helped a generation rediscover a love for home baking and, through gentler kneading and longer rises, create a softer, chewier brown bread.

The resurgence of homemade brown bread during the 1970s’ social upheaval and economic crisis has parallels to the ascent of sourdough as a pop-culture touchpoint during the social isolation of the coronavirus lockdown. Countercultural bakers were looking for connection: connection to their ingredients and their origins (the closer to nature the better) as well as connection to a greater community of fellow bakers and eaters and their historical and cultural memories.

Can engaging in a process that would have been recognizable to our great-grandparents or our great-great-great grandparents reassure us of some basic social continuity? Maybe. And maybe mastering those processes and regaining some of that technical knowledge—lost long ago in the supermarket aisles—is one of the reasons pandemic bread making feels so rewarding right now. We’re not only feeding ourselves, we’re increasing our understanding of how the world works, one loaf at a time.

Of course, baking can’t solve all our problems. The politics of food are as fraught as ever, and not everyone is lucky enough to have the time, energy, or capacity for homemade sourdough. But this moment reminds us of the resilience and elasticity of dough, the toughness in those glutenous bonds: how it’s kneaded and rolled and pounded flat, how it rises back again and again. In baking, as in science, as in life, we learn as we go. And we can only hope that tomorrow we’ll know more than we do today.

Elisabeth Berry Drago is director of museum education at the Institute and cohost of the Distillations podcast .

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What Is the Historical Development of Bread

In Western societies, bread has come to symbolize the primary food that God has given us. Bread and life are intertwined as being seen as being part of each other. The utility of bread to societies in the Old and New World has evolved significantly, where different grains became important and those grains were used to form different types of breads. However, some of the important qualities of bread were likely accidental discoveries, while others still only developed much later.

Early History of Bread

However, probably accidentally, leavened bread developed as yeast naturally occurring in the environment respires as it consumes natural sugars in wheat. Leavened bread is the release of gases by the yeast bacteria. A document from around 3900 BP indicates how beer was also made from bread. One problem with the production of early bread was preservation, where often it would quickly mold. The solution was to convert unused bread into beer, which proved far more amenable for storage. Beer likely made the production of bread less wasteful, as extra bread not consumed could then simply be made into beer. [1]

Millet was another grain used to make bread, particularly in India and China, where a form of flatbread made of millet is still the main food type in India. In China, sorghum and rice were used as varieties for making bread, which made the consistency and quality very different from wheat- and barley-based bread. This also likely explains why bread developed into different levels of significance in Chinese foods and often did not always accompany Chinese food. In the New World, corn was pounded and used to make bread, which was mostly a flat, unleavened bread that is similar to the modern tortilla. [3]

Bread and Society

During the Classical period, there were many varieties of bread (Figure 2), ranging from sourdough, honey-and-oil bread, oyster, barley, wheat, poppy seeds, and even rolls. Bread in Near Eastern and European societies became intertwined with meals and often even the main part of meals, where other foods were sometimes called the condiments or extras that one adds to the meal. The Romans had formed special guilds for bread bakers, calling them COLLEGIUM PISTORUM. Bread bakers also became experts in the production of pastries, where Rome itself likely had several hundred pastry chefs during the apex of its ancient population. Sweetbreads and bread were filled with meats or vegetables became one specialty type.

From the Roman period, we learn also about types of bread made of oats, groats, and rye. White bread, usually made from wheat, however, became associated with the wealthy classes. Above all types of bread and pastries, having white bread served at a meal demonstrated important status for someone. Whole wheat and coarse grain bread in Rome would have been seen as food for poor people, while today such bread is more greatly desired for their nutrition and it is white bread that is seen as less healthy and more for poorer classes. [4]

Molds growing on bread were already recognized for their potential medicinal value. This would become the forerunner of penicillin, which was not formally invented until 1933. However, ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Indians, and likely other societies recognized that molds could be used to heal wounds, where moldy bread could be rubbed on wounds to help with the healing process. Bread left to mold, therefore, also became part of medical applications used to clean wounds and infections. [5]

Modern Bread

Despite bread's importance, changes between ancient periods and that of the Medieval world were minor. At times, during famines, bread flour was often mixed with sawdust or other impurities. Bread became associated with religious feasting, given its significance in the church. However, in technology, little was different from antiquity. [7]

In fact, most bread-making machines commercially sold provide L-cysteine or sodium metabisulfite that catalyzes dough rising far more quickly than traditional bread, allowing for an easy way to mass-produce bread with simple bread makers. Large food retailers have generally sold variations of this type of bread in most Western states today. Many bakeries in the West have, in fact, even become almost fully automated, where robots could now simply mix ready made dough with added chemical that allows fast rising bread to be possible. [9]

Bread in Western societies is perhaps one of the most symbolically important foods. Given its early developed even before the rise of agriculture, and that it became the primary staple food in the Middle East and Europe as agriculture developed, demonstrates that bread has played a central role in societal change. The production of wheat, barley, and other grains developed to make breads demonstrates the variety of grain types that could be used in the bread making process. Beer became the way in which the longevity of bread could be extended, making it less costly as excess bread could then be put into beer-making production.

Bread has gained a sustenance symbolic link, but it was also used for medicinal purposes where early forms of penicillin developed. Bread technologies largely did not change until the 19th and 20th centuries, when automation was introduced to speed up the production of foods. One major development was the introduction of sliced bread. More recent changes have been the creation of doughs that can rise faster by adding chemicals that catalyze the action of yeast. Despite these changes, bread has retained its centrality as a primary food for most Western societies today.

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Maltaweel , Admin and EricLambrecht

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History of Baking

Favorite Quote: "The more you learn the more you know, the more you know the more you forget, the more you forget the less you know, so why learn?"

In High school I learned all about the history of baking. My technology school teacher spent a long time teaching us this information. Baking has a very long history and it starts with bread. Bread has a history that dates back 8,000 years. The flour was created by crushing grains with stone tools. It came out very crude. It was mixed with water then shaped. It was cooked on a flat stone over a fire. The bread created was very hard. Bread was later improved by the Egyptians who discovered yeast. They figured out that the yeast fermented which caused it to rise and light textured bread was created. The Egyptians became experts in growing wheat which allowed them to export it in surplus to Greece. With the flux of wheat, the Greeks became the master bakers of their time. When the Romans conquered the Greeks they turned baking into a profession. In Second Century B.C., all Romans, except the wealthy started using professional bakers instead of making their own bread. Soon a college was organized to teach and refine the knowledge which had government rules and regulations which they were required to follow. The only reason we know this is because evidence of these colleges, shops and public ovens where found by the lava flows and ash that preserved Pompeii in 79 A.D. Baking progressed further with the invention of the first mechanical dough mixer. A man of Greek descent in Rome, named Virgilius Euryasaces created it. The mixer consisted of a stone bowl with wooden paddles that were pulled in circles by donkeys. The Romans graded their grain. Finer & white bread were for nobility, whole wheat was for the masses, and rough grain was for slaves, convicts and the navy. When they arrived in Britain they were so horrified by the poor quality of local bread that they had their own shipped over from Rome. After the Romans left Britain there was little progress in the production of bread, reflecting the other aspects of civilization during the dark ages. The Normans invade Britain and a renewed activity in baking occurs and in 1191 the first use of a windmill for flour is found. Early Norman bread tended to be large, round and flat. They used the bread for two purposed; a plate and food. They called their bread “trenchers” because it soaked up the fats and juices from the various meats that were eaten. The expression “To be a good trencherman” was first used to describe a man who could eat his dinner and his trencher or plate as well. Britain bakeries steadily increased in numbers and the first of guilds known as “The Fraternity of St. Clement of the Mystery of Bakers” is founded. St. Clement is the patron saint of bakers which is where the name came from. The guild took on apprentices. They would go through seven years of apprenticeship and journeyman status until one could be a “master” baker. As the guild grew in size they also grew in importance. They applied for a charter form King Henry VII in 1486. To protect their reputation and payment to the King for the charter, they agreed to bake an extra “makeweight” loaf for every dozen. This is where we get the expression “A baker’s dozen.” In the 16th century, Catherine de Medici of Italy marries King Hery II of France and brings with her a brigade of bakers to Paris. These bakers bring with them formulas and skills for the baking of cream puffs, cream custards, éclairs, tarts and macaroons. This introduced France to the world of pastry arts. In 1780 a school was opened in Paris and pastry baking became a specialized art, setting itself apart from the art of bread making. Following this school in 1895, the famous Le Cordon Bleu is founded. This is the start of modern baking. As the world expanded and people started to settle in the New World they found out that Indians had cultivated a wild grass which was gradually developed into a valuable crop called Indian corn or maize. The first settlers found out how valuable this crop was when they found out wheat was not easy to grow throughout the eastern coastal region. The Colonists also shared recipes. This is where a Johnny Cake comes from. It is a corruption of the Journey Cake that originated from the provisions of cornmeal carried by the Indians. These Johnny Cakes were the start of American Baking. The History of Baking starts with European and is brought over to the Colonies. The colonists didn’t really know how to bake as efficiently as some of the other countries in the world, but they figured out their own style from what they knew of the baking of breads from the European’s history of baking. The history of baking is very long and a big part of the world.

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The History of Bread – From Ancient Flatbread to Sliced Bread

If you ask me one thing that my daughters would drop anything to eat – it's fresh bread. Sourdough, white bread, whole grain bread – it almost doesn't matter the type in their eyes.

But isn't bread fascinating? Like you, I wondered about the history of bread – so I set out to trace this staple food from its early emergence to its current form.

So let's slice through the mysteries – let's discuss bread .

Early Cultures & Forms of Bread

Archaeological evidence  suggests that hunter-gatherer societies around 22,000 years ago already had the means to turn grains into flour and bake rudimentary types of bread. Findings from Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, and the  Fertile Crescent  show that bread was an essential part of everyday life thousands of ago.

However, bread production has come a  long  way since then. 

Early History of Bread 

Farmers began growing and cultivating crops about  12 thousand years ago . But despite the number, the history of breadmaking goes to at  least  10 thousand years before humans even thought about growing wheat and barley in their farms.

In one archaeological excavation, the scientists studying in Ohalo II—an old hunter-gatherer settlement in Israel—opened a new window into the history of bread.

In this 22,000-year-old site , the researchers found remnants of barley starch and a circle of chipped embers – signs of an open alternative to ovens and a tool for baking bread. This significant evidence indicates that making bread was already a well-established activity before humans became largely agricultural.

Natufian Hunter-Gathering Culture

Another example that signifies the early emergence of bread relates to the  archaeobotanical investigations in Shubayqa 1 —an ancient foraging site in North-Eastern Jordan, dating back to the time of Natufian culture—9,500 to 12,000 BCE.

Archaeologists discovered two big fireplaces in an old structure – one of which contained different kinds of flours. They cataloged 24 bread-like types of remains. They found mainly crucifers, legumes, barley, oat, and  einkorn wheat .

By examining flour-like particles and grinding stone tools in the ancient village, scientists learned that those residents were adept at sieving grains, making flour – and turning it into high-quality bread. Therefore, just as in Ohalo II, breadmaking was probably a routine activity for the Natufian people.

Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent

Scientists measured the height, width, and length of the pieces of bread they found in Shubayqa 1 to visualize bread in ancient times. 

You've probably heard this story: early forms of bread were surprisingly similar to the  unleavened flatbreads  that were also cooked  in old Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, and by the Indus civilization.

Flatbreads are relatively thin, featuring at least 1-millimeter thickness. However, depending on the baking method and ingredients, they can be as thick as a few centimeters – but all-in-all, they are nothing compared to the loaves of bread on the shelves today. 

Flatbreads were also popular  among the Fertile Crescent  populace—a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East that spans from modern-day Egypt to the western fringes of Turkey and Iran. 

As the first farmlands of the world, whose residents began cultivating wheat and barley around 8500 BC, the hunter-gatherers of the Fertile Crescent were most likely among the first to make bread in a permanent place.

Ancient Baking Styles and Ovens

As you saw, 22,000 years ago, our ancestors were making ancient flatbread over open flames. But it's not like breadmakers and advanced ovens came overnight – cooking and baking methods also evolved.

One basic baking method in bread's history was to bury the bread under a layer of sand, embers, and ash – " ash-baked bread ." (Similar to  taguella .)

Of course, woodfire and vertical ovens were also popular – and closer to how bread is made today. Vertical ovens are cylindrical and typically made of clay, and may be portable or fixed in location.

The  vertical clay oven originated  in the Syrian–Mesopotamian area, and there's evidence that people throughout the Middle East and North Africa used these ovens extensively. Archeologists have found remains of these ovens from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and Egypt.

In Arabic, the vertical oven is often called a "tanur" or "tanour." It  originated from  the Akkadian word "tinuru." Multiple variants of the word exist in different languages from Turkish ( tandir ) to Persian ( tanur ), Georgian ( tone ), and even Hindi ( tandur ). 

Ancient Egypt

Bread was  a staple food for Egyptians  – for everyone from the pharaoh to the peasants.  Egyptians  even used special types of thick, non-porous bread as containers for other dishes. This bread was easier to bake than leavened flatbreads since it didn't need a vertical oven. 

Around 450 BC, Egyptians figured out that they could make these portable meals using whatever grain was most abundant. This discovery later led to an uptake in agricultural activities, larger villages and settlements – and consequently, the creation of cities worldwide. 

And the Egyptians were more advanced than you'd think. In the Dynastic Period, Egyptians could remove wheat chaff without turning roasting or other special mechanisms. But large-scale production was hard, and only the rich had access to free-thrashed bread wheat. Others had to use emmer wheat. 

Egyptians probably played a large role in the widespread use and advancement of bread. They had excellent trade relationships with the Greeks and exported bread wheat – and their bread baking knowledge – to Europe. Also, historians know yeast-fermented breadmaking  was mastered in Egypt  – early leavened bread. So Egypt possibly gave us some early examples of sourdough – and  beer  (although it's true: the Sumerians first created some inferior brews!).

Bread Advancements 

The  first bread-baking efforts  in history go back to when our ancestors started harvesting grass grains. They'd smash the grains and mix the resulting powder with water to produce a soupy, gelatinous-like ingredient. They then shaped that paste and turned it into loaves of bread. But that wasn't the last bread innovation, as you well know!

The Roman Empire

In the times of the Old Testament, baking bread and its associated tasks were either a slave's job or a job for women. In  about 300-150 BCE , however, the history of bread took a large turn when the baking industry started to thrive in the Roman Empire, and free men began considering bread-baking a decent occupation.

Soon enough, there were  hundreds  of master bakers around Rome. The popularity of baking jobs led to high regulatory scrutiny and the initiation of the Baker's Guild  in 168 BC . The Guild's rules were rigorous – once apprenticed, bakers, their kids, and grandkids couldn't withdraw from the practice. They were also forbidden from joining the theater (a lower-class activity at the time).

By all accounts, the Romans made excellent bread. During this period, the Romans brought their  beer brewing expertise  into the bakery field and started to  add yeast to their doughs  to produce a sourdough and bake a wonderful, fluffy leavened bread.

Rome also gives us two fascinating developments in the history of bread. First, with the  Edict of Diocletian , or  Diocletian's Edict on Maximum Prices  of 301 CE, we see early evidence of maximum prices on grains –  in this case, spelt . And bread was certainly political – before that, the poet Juvenal coined the phrase  Bread and Circuses . Bread and Circuses, or food and games, was his cynical take on all politicians needed to supply to appease the Roman population.

Greece 

The Romans and the Greeks preferred white bread over dark because, at that time, color was an important factor in distinguishing bread quality.  White bread requires sieving the bran and germ  – much harder than other forms of processing.

Therefore, the educated and affluent class tended to eat different white bread types. On the other hand, those of lower status couldn't afford to buy white bread and settled for the darker loaves.

In Greece, many people were poor peasants who had to farm grains to pay their taxes and earn some money to eke out a meager living. As a result, they never had enough money to buy an oven and had to sell their grains to a baker, only to get some dark bread in return. 

At the time, most bakers didn't own bakeries. Instead, they used to bake bread in their homes or  even the public ovens  and bring them into the streets to sell.

The Greeks prayed to the goddess  Demeter —the goddess of harvest and agriculture—to increase their productivity so that they can have more grains and, therefore, more flour to bake bread. 

Also attributed to the Greeks: in the 5th century BCE, we see the first emergence of  the Olynthus Mill —also known as the hopper rubber—to turn grains into flour. The mill was composed of rectangular-shaped lower and upper stones.  This hand-driven mill  drove the massive production of flour in Ancient Greece, which meant more access to flour and bread. 

Breadmaking and the Gauls

The Romans and Greeks aren't the only cultures with a rich history of bread. 

Gaius Plinius Secundus, famously called Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author and naval commander who traveled to various regions. 

In his writings, Pliny  talks about the exquisite taste  of the bread made in Gaul—a region in Western Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Residents of these areas used the foam from beer fermentation in their baking process, which gave their bread a unique lightness and taste. 

Persians 

Persians also had great accomplishments in the baking industry. While the Greeks and Romans were experimenting with water, they were among the first people to invent  windmills , in around 600 BC. 

The linked windmills – the so-called Nashtifan Windmills – are 65-foot-tall windmills that still stand in a small village near the Iran-Afghanistan border. Those particular mills have worked for an estimated 1,000 years.

Bread in the Middle Ages 

Viking bread .

Vikings had a relatively healthy diet, which included lots of bread. They were skilled at making  a popular form of rye bread  that still exists today. In addition to rye flour, its ingredients include dried yeast and honey. 

The Trencher 

Despite its significance in people's diets, not everyone in Europe  had equal access to bread . Although medieval physicians used to recommend people eat refined, healthy, white bread, poorer people had no other choice except buying darker bread made of oats or rye. 

In fact, the most dominant type of bread in rich people's diets was the trencher.

Trenchers were thick flatbreads that served as a plate for wealthy people, and held their other dinner foods, such as meat, sauce, and mashed potatoes. After finishing the top foodstuffs, people could finally eat the trencher, or  give it as a donation to the poor .

Early Regulation of Bread and Organizing of Baker's Guilds

After the further rise of commercial banking and the collapse of the traditional home bakery, new milestones in the history of bread came about through two types of regulation:

• Self-regulatory efforts by bakers themselves—usually through  baker's guilds .
• Assize laws issued by the governing authorities.

Bread & Baker's Guilds in Europe

Guilds were joint organizations that obliged their members to obey specific regulations, and, in return, would offer some protection in the form of trade restrictions. 

For example, members of a guild could ensure access to cost-efficient raw materials, safety, and financial assistance whenever their business incurred a loss. In other words, the guilds served as insurance coverage for the bakers' society.  Around the 8th Century CE , we saw the first emergence of Baker's Guilds in Western and Northern Europe.

England and the Assize of Bread and Ale

While the guilds were the baker's guarantee of safety and support,  assize laws assured  low-priced and good-quality products for customers. Like the  Edict of Diocletian  in 301 AD, the famous 13th Century England  Assize of Bread and Ale  put maximum prices on wheat products.

This law – and others like it – worked against guild monopolies to prevent bakers from misusing their power – and consequently, overcharging the poor. Based on the assize laws, a baker who breached these regulations or sold expensive bread was condemned to predetermined fines or even whipping.

Baker's Dozen Origin 

Curiously, through this mistrust and the emergence of the regulations, the concept of a  baker's dozen  – 13 or 14 pieces – emerged.

The word 'doze' is synonymous with the number 'twelve.' But, to avoid government fines and punishment, bakers would give their customers an extra loaf for every 12 loaves they bought. Some even went so far as to giving two extra rolls for every 12. This is why the  baker's dozen  usually equals 13 or 14. 

Gristmills All Over Europe

With the growth of breadmaking in the medieval era, the number of  gristmills  – cereal grain grinders – increased rapidly in the 10th century. From the 1086 AD Domesday Book from William the Conqueror, we know there were 5,624 water-powered gristmills in England, around 1 for every 300 citizens at the time. 

Gristmills popped up all over Europe. You can see  particularly well-preserved mills even today  in Europe and throughout Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran.

Bread and Industrialization 

Oliver evans and the automatic flour mill.

After the first industrial revolution, in 1782, an American inventor named Oliver Evans was the  first to design a fully automated flour mill . Evans was a well-known businessman and engineer of his time, who designed and built the first automated industrial process – he built all manner of steam-powered vehicles and machinery after his success with the mill. 

Before Evans' innovation, every single step of the milling process was labor-based and very time-consuming. Inspired by marine applications, Evans even designed a bucket elevator for his flour mill to help pass the crops and flours through different parts of the mill.

After that, he further improved his machine and automated the cooling, drying, sieving, and packing steps. This smart automation procedure saved  tons  of hours spent by laborers and accelerated the whole breadmaking procedure. You can thank Oliver for laying the tracks to supermarket bread today.

Steel Roller Mill in Switzerland

In 1834, a Swiss engineer— Jacob Sulzberger —invented the steel roller mill. Instead of crushing the grains as with stone grinding, these new mills could separate germ and bran by applying slight pressure on the grain. This new method produced extremely high-quality white flour for the baking industry.

Baking Powder 

At the same time,  Alfred Bird , a chemist and food manufacturer in England, developed the first version of baking powder. Baking powder was the first real alternative to yeast, which helped to leaven dough and lighten the texture of bread with acid reactions. 

We owe our present cakes and cookies  to Bird's wife . Mrs. Bird had a yeast allergy, which motivated Bird to look for an alternative. We probably would've seen a significantly different timeline for cakes and other pastry products if it wasn't for her food intolerance! 

About three decades after Bird's efforts, an American named  Eben Norton Horsford  created the first double-acting baking powder. Unlike Bird's single-acting baking powder, it  didn't  make carbon dioxide bubbles before heating.

These new attempts at baking powders gave a better taste to pastry products than the fragmented ones and would increase the flavor and speed of the bread-baking procedure.

Bread Oxidizers 

In the early 1900s,  Jackel and Diachuk discovered  that if they add tiny amounts of an oxidizing agent—such as ascorbic acid and cysteine—into flour, they can enhance the physical characteristics of the resulting dough and produce more desirable baking products. Oxidizing agents act as if they 'age' the dough, making it easier to handle and quicker to rise during baking.

Bread Slicing Machine

Even wonder who invented sliced bread? In 1927, Otto Frederick Rohwedder, another American inventor, developed and commercialized the first automatic bread slicer. 

His ingenious device not only sliced bread but also  wrapped the slices up in packaging .

Baking powders and the slicing machine were great contributors to the success of the baking industry. However, the progress didn't end here – but they certainly left us plenty of jokes about the best invention since sliced bread.

Bread Today

Pre-sliced bread and wonder bread .

Soon after the invention of the automatic bread slicer , there was a major milestone in the history of bread when a popular American brand emerged. Wonder Bread  was founded in 1921  but rose to prominence only when it started selling pre-sliced bread in 1930. 

That joking expression – "that's the best thing since sliced bread" – was more  Wonder Bread-inspired  than  Rohwedder-inspired . 

With Wonder Bread's innovation, bread slices were now more uniform and even easier to eat. People started eating more bread because it was easier to prepare than almost anything else – you just had to reach and get another slice.

Fortified Bread and Bread Bans

In  1943 , during World War II, the head of the FDA Claude R. Wickard ordered a ban on pre-sliced bread due to inappropriate packaging (maybe – Wickard apparently thought the bread packaging was wasted on bread). But the ban didn't last more than two months – Americans heavily objected to the decision.

Another important bread-related event during the Second World War was  bread fortification . At the time, American soldiers suffered from poor nutritional status. The US had already gone down the fortification road – adding iodine to salt in the 1920s.

The next solution?  In 1940 , the Committee on Food and Nutrition (now Food and Nutrition Board or FNB) recommended the addition of thiamin, niacin, riboflavin, and iron to flour. The FDA and the American Bakers Association got together and started enriching the nation's flour in 1942. Within a year, the authorities enacted  the first War Food Order . 

After the war, in 1946, the order was repealed – only to be replaced with new regulations in 1952. Nowadays, bread fortification isn't mandatory anymore, but "enriched" products have to meet specific standards. 

Return to Artisan Bread 

During the 70s and 80s, nearly all bread was mass-produced using large and complex machinery. However, shifting health consciousness coincided with people craving hand-made bread made from ancient processes – and  now called artisan bread .

It's ironic how things have come full circle—from thousands of years ago when people baked bread by hand to now where small-batch is again a form of art.

Bread Statistics

Today, Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Turkey have  the largest per capita consumption of bread .

In the US, bread is extremely popular – over 95 percent of Americans say they  consume bread  regularly. Moreover, in 2019,  almost 200 million  people chose whole wheat or multigrain bread, and 10.21 million households ate  five loaves/packages of bread  in a week. 

Bread: It Drives Civilization

We aren't starved for varieties of bread today – far from it. But before we got to supermarket bread aisles, bread traced a fascinating path amongst our ancestors.

From unleavened flatbread to yeast-driven leavened bread to the pre-sliced bread on the shelves today, bread is here to stay. So the next time you eat some bread – or my daughters steal a slice – let's keep the bread innovations in mind!

2 comments on “The History of Bread – From Ancient Flatbread to Sliced Bread”

this is a very deep dive into the history of bread. I enjoy reading your well researched posts. For those of us focused on cooking and eating great food at home, there is a lot of ideas and information. Thanks.

I was born in 1956 in North Carolina. Was there a whole wheat option then or was enriched white bread considered the healthiest?

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The History of Cakes: From Ancient Times to Today

Cakes have been a staple dessert item for centuries and have undergone a significant transformation over time.

In this article, we will delve into the history of cakes, exploring the evolution of this sweet treat and how it has become the beloved dessert it is today.

Table of Contents

The Origin of Cakes

These cakes were typically served during religious ceremonies and were thought to symbolize the sweetness of life. The Greeks also baked cakes, but instead of honey, they used olive oil and added spices like cinnamon and nutmeg to give their cakes a unique flavor.

The Ancient Egyptians: The Birthplace of Cakes

These cakes were often used in religious ceremonies and were even offered to the gods as a symbol of gratitude.

The Greeks and Romans: The Expansion of Cakes

The Greeks added cheese to their cakes, while the Romans experimented with different flavors and ingredients, such as honey and spices.

These new flavors and styles quickly spread throughout the empire and became a staple in their diets.

The Middle Ages: The Rise of Decorative Cakes

The renaissance: the art of baking.

The Renaissance was a time of great artistic and culinary creativity, and cakes were no exception.

Bakers began to refine their skills and create even more intricate and beautiful cakes. Sugar and butter were introduced, which allowed bakers to create sweeter and richer cakes.

The Evolution of Cake Flavors

As society has changed, so has the taste and variety of cakes. In the early 20th century, fruit-based cakes like banana bread and carrot cake became popular.

The mid-century saw the rise of chocolate cakes, and in recent years, unique and exotic flavors like red velvet and matcha have taken the cake world by storm.

The Future of Cakes

As the popularity of cakes continues to grow, so too will the creativity and innovation of bakers. From new flavors and designs to new baking techniques and materials, the possibilities are endless.

Cakes will continue to play a special role in celebrations and special occasions for generations to come.

Today: The Modern-Day Cake

Bakers have continued to experiment with new flavors and ingredients, and the variety of cakes available is truly staggering. From classic yellow cake with chocolate frosting to exotic flavored cakes with unique fillings, there is a cake for every taste and occasion.

Frequently Asked Questions About Cake History

Cakes have been a popular dessert for centuries, with the earliest records of cake-making dating back to ancient civilizations such as the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans.

In conclusion, the evolution of cakes is a fascinating journey through history, from the ancient Egyptians to the modern-day baker. Cakes have been a symbol of celebration and enjoyment for centuries, and their popularity only continues to grow. Whether you prefer a classic flavor or something a little more adventurous, there is a cake out there for everyone to enjoy.

Jennifer Tirrell

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Baking Through History: The Evolution of American Bakery Classics

Table of Contents

The Origins of American Bakery Classics

Explore the origins of popular American bakery classics such as apple pie, chocolate chip cookies, and cheesecake. Learn about the influence of different cultures and immigrant communities on American baking traditions, and discover the historical context behind the development of these classic recipes.

American bakery classics have a rich and diverse history, shaped by the fusion of culinary traditions brought by immigrants from all over the world. Each classic dessert tells a story, intertwining cultural influences and the resourcefulness of early American bakers.

One of the most iconic American bakery classics is apple pie. Although it can be traced back to medieval England, it was the American colonists who popularized this delicious dessert. The colonists settled in regions with abundant apple orchards, leading to an abundance of apples that needed to be preserved. This sparked the invention of apple pie, a dessert that encapsulated the flavors of freshly picked apples and warm spices.

Another beloved American bakery classic is the chocolate chip cookie. This delectable treat was invented by Ruth Graves Wakefield in the 1930s at the Toll House Inn in Massachusetts. Originally, Wakefield planned to make chocolate cookies, but she ran out of baking chocolate and decided to use chopped-up semi-sweet chocolate instead. This serendipitous mistake resulted in the creation of the chocolate chip cookie, which quickly gained popularity across the nation.

Cheesecake, originally a European dessert, has also become an American classic. The roots of cheesecake can be traced back to ancient Greece, where it was served at the first Olympic Games. As immigrants from various European countries settled in America, they brought their traditional cheesecake recipes with them. Over time, American bakers incorporated local ingredients like cream cheese, resulting in the creamy and indulgent cheesecake we know and love today.

The development of these classic recipes over time showcases the adaptability and innovation of American bakers. It also demonstrates how culinary traditions can evolve as different cultures interact and influence one another. These American bakery classics have not only become part of our culinary heritage but also a reflection of the melting pot that is American society.

Traditional Techniques and Ingredients

When it comes to early American baking, traditional techniques and ingredients played a vital role in shaping the foundation of classic recipes. These methods and key ingredients have stood the test of time, contributing to the authenticity and deliciousness of American bakery classics.

Techniques:

The art of baking in early America relied heavily on tried and true techniques handed down through generations. Techniques such as creaming butter and sugar together to create a light and fluffy texture, and the use of leavening agents like yeast or baking soda, were common practices. Bakers also employed mixing methods such as folding, beating, and whisking to create optimum results in their baked goods.

Ingredients:

Key ingredients used in early American baking were simple yet essential to achieving the desired flavors and textures. Wheat flour, with its gluten content, formed the backbone of many recipes, providing structure and elasticity. Sugar, whether granulated or brown, added sweetness and acted as a preservative. Butter contributed richness and moisture, while eggs provided binding and leavening properties.

In addition to the foundational ingredients, early American bakers often incorporated regional or seasonal ingredients to infuse their recipes with distinct flavors. For instance, apple pie became a quintessential American dessert due to the abundance of apples across the country, particularly in the Northeast. Likewise, the combination of Dutch influence and readily available cream cheese gave rise to the beloved American classic, cheesecake.

Preserving Authenticity:

Through the passing down of techniques and generations-old recipes, the preservation of authenticity in American bakery classics has been upheld. Family traditions and cultural influences have played a significant role in ensuring that these recipes remain true to their origins. By adhering to traditional techniques and utilizing key ingredients, bakers across America strive to maintain the integrity of these beloved classics.

Innovations and Adaptations

Over the years, American bakery classics have undergone significant innovations and adaptations to cater to changing tastes, technological advancements, and cultural influences. These modifications have led to the creation of a diverse range of bakery items that reflect the evolving preferences of consumers.

1. Evolution of Classic Recipes:

• Technology advancements: As technology advanced, so did the techniques and equipment used in baking. Traditional methods, such as hand-mixing, were gradually replaced by electric mixers and ovens, resulting in more efficient and consistent baking processes.
• Variations in ingredients: The availability of ingredients has greatly influenced the adaptations of American bakery classics. For example, during times of rationing in World War II, bakers had to find creative alternatives for ingredients that were in short supply.
• Cultural influences: The melting pot of cultures in the United States has contributed to the adaptation of classic recipes. Different immigrant communities brought their own baking traditions and flavors, leading to the fusion of diverse culinary influences.

2. Modern Variations:

• Vegan adaptations: With the rise of plant-based diets, many bakeries have created vegan versions of traditional classics. These adaptations replace dairy and eggs with plant-based alternatives, ensuring that everyone can enjoy the nostalgic flavors of American bakery classics.
• Gluten-free options: Recognizing the growing demand for gluten-free products, bakers have developed alternative recipes that cater to those with gluten sensitivities. These adaptations utilize ingredients like almond flour, rice flour, or gluten-free baking mixes to recreate beloved bakery items without compromising taste and texture.

3. Versatility of Classics:

A notable aspect of American bakery classics is their versatility, allowing for endless creativity and experimentation. Bakers have expanded upon traditional recipes, adding unique twists and flavors to appeal to contemporary tastes.

One such example is the beloved chocolate chip cookie. While the original recipe remains popular, bakers have crafted variations with additions such as nuts, dried fruits, or even savory ingredients like bacon or sea salt. These adaptations allow for a personalized touch and offer a wide array of choices to satisfy diverse palates.

4. Preserving Authenticity:

Despite the innovations and adaptations, there is still a strong emphasis on preserving the authenticity of American bakery classics. Many baking traditions have been passed down through generations, ensuring that the original recipes are not lost.

Bakeries dedicated to upholding these traditions often meticulously follow time-tested techniques and use high-quality ingredients. They serve as custodians of the classics, allowing people to experience the timeless flavors that have become integral to American culture.

As the love for American bakery classics continues to thrive, innovation and adaptation will play an essential role in shaping the future of these beloved treats. Bakers will continue to experiment, drawing inspiration from cultural diversity, evolving consumer preferences, and sustainability concerns, ensuring that American bakery classics remain a delightful indulgence for generations to come.

Popular Bakery Items Through the Decades

Throughout American history, certain bakery items have captured the hearts and taste buds of the nation. Let’s take a journey through time and explore the enduring popularity of these iconic treats.

1920s – The Roaring Twenties

– Apple Pie: A beloved classic that symbolizes American traditions, apple pie remained a staple during the 1920s. Its warm, cinnamon-infused filling and flaky crust offered comfort in an era of exuberance and change.

1930s – The Great Depression

– Chocolate Chip Cookies: In the face of economic hardship, chocolate chip cookies brought a sense of joy and indulgence. The combination of gooey chocolate chunks and a soft yet slightly crisp texture made these cookies a welcomed treat during difficult times.

1940s – World War II

– Cheesecake: As American soldiers fought overseas, cheesecake became a symbol of hope and comfort on the home front. Creamy and rich, this dessert offered a taste of luxury amidst rationing and uncertainty.

1950s – The Golden Age

– Donuts: The popularity of donuts soared in the 1950s. These sweet, fried pastries became an iconic part of American culture, with coffee shops and diners serving them as a breakfast staple. From simple glazed varieties to cream-filled delights, donuts satisfied the nation’s cravings for sweetness.

1960s – Cultural Revolution

– Cupcakes: The 1960s saw a rise in individualized treats, and cupcakes gained popularity as a symbol of self-expression and creativity. With various cake flavors, frosting colors, and decorations, cupcakes became a canvas for personalization and celebration.

1970s – Health Consciousness

– Bran Muffins: As society embraced a focus on health and nutrition, bran muffins emerged as a guilt-free indulgence in the 1970s. Packed with fiber and often filled with fruits or nuts, these muffins provided a satisfying breakfast or snack option.

1980s – Decadence and Excess

– Cinnamon Rolls: The 1980s embraced indulgence, and cinnamon rolls, with their buttery dough, sweet cinnamon filling, and rich cream cheese frosting, became a symbol of decadence. These sticky delights were a popular treat for breakfast or dessert.

1990s – Worldly Influences

– Croissants: With growing interest in international cuisine, American bakeries began offering buttery and flaky croissants in various flavors. These French pastries became breakfast staples, enjoyed with coffee and appreciated for their delicate layers.

2000s – Modern Adaptations

– Red Velvet Cake: The 2000s witnessed the rise of red velvet cake, a moist and velvety dessert with a hint of cocoa. Coupled with its eye-catching deep red color and cream cheese frosting, red velvet cake became a popular choice for celebrations and special occasions.

2010s – Health-conscious Alternatives

– Gluten-Free Brownies: Reflecting the increasing demand for dietary alternatives, gluten-free brownies emerged as a favorite among those with gluten sensitivities. These rich and fudgy brownies showcased the versatility of gluten-free baking.

2020s – Fusing Traditions with Trends

– Matcha Pastries: In the current decade, the fusion of traditional and trendy flavors is evident in matcha pastries. From matcha muffins to matcha-infused donuts, this vibrant green tea-flavored trend offers a unique twist on classic bakery favorites while satisfying the contemporary desire for wellness-oriented indulgence. From the humble apple pie to the trendy matcha pastries of today, bakery items have played a significant role in shaping American culture and satisfying our sweet cravings.

Regional Specialties and Local Favorites

One of the remarkable aspects of American bakery classics is the diverse range of regional specialties and local favorites found across different states in the United States. These unique creations highlight the country’s rich culinary heritage and showcase the distinct flavors and ingredients associated with each region.

East Coast Delights

On the East Coast, states like New York and Massachusetts are famous for their delectable cheesecakes. Made with cream cheese, eggs, and a graham cracker crust, these creamy delights have become synonymous with indulgence. Another beloved treat from this region is the Boston cream pie, a luscious combination of sponge cake, custard filling, and a chocolate glaze.

Southern Comfort

The southern states have their fair share of bakery specialties, deeply rooted in their rich culinary traditions. A classic pecan pie, with its gooey filling and crunchy nuts, is a staple on many dessert tables in states like Georgia and Louisiana. Meanwhile, the deep south is also known for its light and fluffy buttermilk biscuits, which are a perfect accompaniment to a savory meal.

Midwestern Charm

In the heartland of America, the Midwest has its own array of bakery favorites. Apple pie holds a special place in the hearts of many Midwesterners, with its warm spices and tender, flaky crust. Another regional delight is the St. Louis-style gooey butter cake, a sweet and gooey treat that is sure to satisfy any sweet tooth.

West Coast Wonders

On the West Coast, California stands out with its iconic sourdough bread. The tangy and chewy bread, made using a starter culture, has become synonymous with San Francisco’s culinary identity. Another popular West Coast treat is the marionberry pie, made with the juicy and tart marionberries that are native to Oregon.

Southwestern Flavors

In the Southwestern states, such as Texas and New Mexico, the influence of Mexican and Native American cuisines is evident in their bakery classics. The cinnamon-infused Mexican sweet bread, known as pan dulce, is a beloved treat with its elaborate shapes and vibrant colors. Southwestern cornbread, made with cornmeal and often flavored with green chilies or cheese, is another regional favorite.

Coastal Treasures

Along the coastal regions of the United States, seafood-inspired bakery classics shine. In New England, the lobster roll represents the perfect marriage of a buttery roll and succulent lobster meat. In the Pacific Northwest, cafes offer a variety of delicious scones, often incorporating local berries like blueberries or huckleberries.

These regional specialties, with their distinct ingredients and flavors, contribute to the rich tapestry of American bakery classics. They reflect the diversity and culinary heritage of the different states, showcasing the unique identity and tastes that make each region special.

The Role of Bakery in American Culture

Bakeries and bakery classics hold a special place in American culture, playing an integral role in both celebrations and everyday life. These traditional treats have become iconic symbols of American culinary heritage, evoking feelings of nostalgia and sentimental connections. Let’s delve into the significance of bakeries and their delectable offerings in shaping American culture.

The Heart of Celebrations and Holidays

Bakery classics feature prominently in American celebrations and holidays, adding a touch of sweetness to joyous occasions. From birthday cakes adorned with colorful frosting and candles to elegantly crafted wedding cakes, the artistry and deliciousness of bakery creations make these moments even more memorable. During holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter, American households are filled with the comforting aroma of freshly baked pies, cookies, and bread. Indulging in slices of warm pumpkin pie or biting into a soft, chewy gingerbread cookie has become a cherished tradition throughout the nation.

A Part of Everyday Life

Beyond special occasions, bakery classics have become an integral part of everyday American life. Busy mornings often begin with a stop at the local bakery for a fresh bagel, croissant, or muffin. The variety of baked goods available caters to different tastes and preferences, ensuring everyone can start their day with a delightful treat. Lunch breaks and afternoon coffee runs often involve a visit to nearby bakeries, where shelves are filled with mouthwatering options. Whether it’s a flaky, buttery pastry or a gooey chocolate brownie, these goodies offer a brief respite from the daily grind and provide indulgence with each bite.

Sentimental Value and Nostalgic Connections

Bakery classics hold a sentimental value for individuals, evoking memories of childhood, family traditions, and shared experiences. The simple act of baking cookies with loved ones or enjoying a slice of pie passed down through generations nurtures a sense of heritage and belonging. The cookies your grandmother used to bake or the cinnamon rolls your father would make on lazy Sundays carry not just flavors but also the essence of familial love. These recipes, often treasured and carefully handed down, serve as a reminder of the past and a way to connect with one’s roots.

Preserving Culinary Heritage

Bakeries across the United States play a significant role in preserving the authenticity of bakery classics. These establishments strive to uphold time-honored recipes, techniques, and flavors that define American baking traditions. By valuing craftsmanship and quality ingredients, bakeries ensure that each sweet delight served carries the essence of traditional American bakery fare.

Links to Further Explore

If you’re eager to learn more about the role of bakery in American culture, here are some reliable sources to delve deeper into the subject: – Smithsonian Magazine offers a fascinating article on the history of American bakeries. – The PBS food website provides insights into the history and significance of pies in American culture. – For a comprehensive exploration of American baking traditions, the book “American Cake: From Colonial Gingerbread to Classic Layer” by Anne Byrn is highly recommended. So, next time you savor a luscious slice of pie or treat yourself to a warm cinnamon roll, remember that these bakery classics are not just desserts but an integral part of American culture – connecting generations and celebrating the sweetness of life.

The Future of American Bakery Classics

The world of American bakery classics is constantly evolving to meet the changing preferences and lifestyles of consumers. Current trends and innovations in baking are shaping the future of these beloved treats, ensuring that they remain relevant and satisfying for years to come.

Changing Consumer Preferences

As consumers become more health-conscious and mindful of their dietary choices, bakeries are adapting their offerings to cater to these preferences. There is a growing demand for healthier alternatives to traditional bakery items, such as whole grain or gluten-free options. Bakeries are also incorporating more plant-based ingredients to accommodate the rising popularity of vegan diets.

Check out this guide to vegan baking for delicious plant-based alternatives to classic bakery recipes.

Emphasis on Sustainability

In recent years, the importance of sustainability and environmental responsibility has gained significant traction. Bakers and consumers alike are recognizing the need to reduce food waste, conserve resources, and support local producers.

One emerging trend is the use of alternative flours and grains, such as spelt or almond flour, which have lower environmental footprints compared to conventional wheat flour. Additionally, bakeries are exploring creative ways to repurpose leftover ingredients or implement efficient production processes to minimize waste.

Learn more about sustainable baking practices from this resource on sustainable baking tips .

Fusion and Global Influences

The diverse cultural landscape of the United States continues to shape the future of American bakery classics. Bakeries are increasingly incorporating global flavors and techniques into their creations, resulting in unique and exciting taste combinations.

For instance, the fusion of traditional American desserts with flavors from Asian cuisines, such as matcha or coconut, has gained popularity. This blending of cultures not only expands the range of bakery offerings but also celebrates the multicultural nature of American society.

Tech Innovations

The advancement of technology has revolutionized the baking industry, offering new possibilities and efficiencies. Bakers are leveraging innovative equipment and tools to enhance the quality and consistency of their products.

From precision temperature control ovens to automated mixing systems, these technological advancements enable bakers to experiment with new recipes and create bakery classics with even greater precision and flavor.

Explore the latest baking technologies through this technology spotlight on baking equipment .

Online Platforms and Delivery Services

The rise of online platforms and delivery services has transformed the way consumers access bakery classics. Bakeries are increasingly using these platforms to reach a wider audience and offer their unique creations beyond their local communities.

Online platforms also provide opportunities for home bakers to share their own adaptations of American bakery classics, fostering a sense of community and creativity.

Looking for an online bakery? Visit Baked by Melissa to experience a wide variety of bite-sized treats.

As the world continues to evolve, American bakery classics will continue to adapt and innovate to meet the demands of consumers. Whether it’s healthy alternatives, sustainability practices, global fusion, tech advancements, or online accessibility, the future of American bakery classics holds exciting prospects.

Category: Bakery

ARTS & CULTURE

Cooking through the ages: a timeline of oven inventions.

How much has technology really changed since the first ovens, wood-fired hearths?

Lisa Bramen

One of the things I originally found charming when I bought my 1850 farmhouse was its circa-1962 General Electric kitchen with coordinating aqua and yellow metal cabinets, appliances and countertops. There was even a full set of matching Fiestaware thrown into the deal. It was all very kitsch, and I loved it.

That was two years ago. Although I still love the retro look, the honeymoon is definitely over for the 60-year-old oven range and me. Alas, looks don’t boil the water or bake the cake. After a couple of failed repair attempts, I have finally come to the conclusion that I need to replace it.

I’m excited to get a stove with the latest technology, but some of what’s currently available doesn’t do much for me. Most electric ranges today have a smooth cooktop surface. The advantage is that it’s easy to clean, but I hate the look and don’t like that you can’t use certain kinds of pots on it (such as enamel-coated cast iron). All the options can get confusing, especially for those of us who zoned out in physics class: there’s induction cooking, convection ovens and dual-fuel ovens, with gas ranges and convection ovens.

How far we’ve come from the first ovens, wood-fired hearths. But how much has technology really changed since then? Here’s a look at some of the highlights in the evolution of indoor cooking.

Ancient times: Ancient Egyptians, Jews and Romans (and probably other civilizations) all employed some form of stone or brick oven fired with wood to bake bread. Some of these designs aren’t too far off from what’s still used today to get a deliciously crisp pizza crust.

Colonial America: Imagine trying to bake a cake without being able to precisely gauge or control the temperature. That’s what our foremothers managed to do with their beehive-shaped brick ovens, which they regulated strictly by burning the right amount of wood to ash and then tested by sticking their hands inside, adding more wood or opening the door to let it cool to what seemed like the right temperature.

1795: Cast iron stoves had already been around for decades, but the version invented by Count Rumford (who is also credited with establishing the first soup kitchen) at the end of the 18th century was particularly popular. It had a single fire source yet the temperature could be regulated individually for several pots at the same time, all while heating the room, too. Its biggest drawback was that it was too large for modest home kitchens.

1834: According to the Gas Museum, in Leicester, England, the first recorded use of gas for cooking was by a Moravian named Zachaus Winzler in 1802. But it took another three decades for the first commercially produced gas stove, designed by Englishman James Sharp, to hit the market. The stoves became popular by the end of that century for being easier to regulate and requiring less upkeep than wood or coal stoves.

1892: It wasn’t long after the introduction of home electricity that electric stoves came into use. One early model was manufactured by Thomas Ahearn, a Canadian electric company owner, whose savvy marketing included a demonstration meal prepared entirely with electricity at Ottawa’s Windsor Hotel in 1892.

1946: An engineer for the Raytheon Corporation, Percy LeBaron Spencer, was doing research on microwave-producing magnetrons when he discovered that the candy bar in his pocket had melted. He experimented further with microwave radiation and realized that it could cook food more quickly than through the application of heat. Eight years later, the company produced its first commercial microwave oven; its Amana division released the first domestic version in 1967. The high price and (unfounded) fears about radiation meant it took at least another decade for the appliances to become popular. Today they’re a fixture in nearly every American home.

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Lisa Bramen was a frequent contributor to Smithsonian.com's Food and Think blog. She is based in northern New York and is also an associate editor at Adirondack Life magazine.

Bakeries and Bakers

By Jack McCarthy

Baking, one of the earliest businesses in Philadelphia, did not become a major part of the local economy until the late nineteenth century. It remained a viable industry throughout the region’s history, however, ranging from small neighborhood bakeries to large baking companies with national product distribution.

Philadelphia supported several commercial bakers from the beginning. A list of businesses in the city in 1690 included seven “Master Bakers,” while a 1700 report to the Commissioners of Customs noted that the fertile farmlands of southeastern Pennsylvania allowed for the export of large quantities of bread and flour, staples of Philadelphia’s substantial trade with the West Indies. As the city grew in its early years, bakers were among the many providers of essential goods and services to the expanding population. Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) recalled that one of the first things he did upon arriving in Philadelphia in 1723 was to purchase “three great puffy rolls” from a baker on Second Street.

Philadelphia’s leading trading firms sold large amounts of bread and hard crackers to Caribbean and European customers in the colonial period. The region’s bakeries sometimes had to supply other groups as well. In September 1757, during the Seven Years’ War , the city’s largest trading company, Willing and Morris, wrote to associates in Barbados that it was difficult to procure bread for export because “the Bakers are all engaged in Baking Bread for the different Fleets & Troops in America.” Commercial bakers also did the baking for poorer families that did not have the facilities to bake at home; women would make the dough themselves and pay the local baker a small fee to bake it.

One of the region’s earliest large-scale bakers was Evan Thomas (1690-1746), a Quaker miller who in 1735 bought a tract of land on the Delaware River at the northern edge of Philadelphia County, where he built a very large bake oven. The “Bake House,” as it was known, was a major operation that supplied bread and biscuit to ships that plied the river. When Thomas died, his son Evan (b. 1724) continued the business. Although there is no documentary evidence, tradition holds that the Bake House provided bread for American troops in the area during the Revolutionary War .

Bread for the Troops

Cyrus Bustill (1732–1806) also supplied bread to continental troops during the war. A mixed race African American born a slave in Burlington, New Jersey, Bustill was purchased by a Quaker baker who taught him the trade. After his owner freed him in 1769, Bustill set up a bakery in Burlington, from which he supplied troops in the area with bread. He later moved to Philadelphia, where he operated a bakery on Arch Street above Second Street and became a leader in the city’s African American community.

Germans were among the largest immigrant groups to bring baking traditions from their homeland to the Philadelphia area in the colonial period. German-born Christopher Ludwig (1720–1801) was one of the most successful such immigrant bakers. The son of a baker, he served in that capacity in various militaries in Europe and later received culinary training in London before immigrating to Philadelphia in 1754. Ludwig established a prosperous bakery and confectionary shop in Letitia Court, between Market and Chestnut and Front and Second Streets. Although a wealthy entrepreneur in his mid-fifties at the time of the Revolutionary War , Ludwig nevertheless volunteered for service and in 1777 the Continental Congress appointed him Superintendent of Bakers for the Continental army.

A few large-scale operations notwithstanding, the region’s baking industry was comprised primarily of small shops in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. For example, there were three biscuit makers and four cake bakers among Philadelphia’s self-employed free African American women in 1838. An 1857 report on Philadelphia manufacturers found that while there were many bread makers in the city, only two or three produced enough to be considered wholesalers. A new bread-making firm incorporated in 1856 as the Pennsylvania Farina Company built a large steam-powered bakery at Broad and Vine Streets, but it failed within a few years. The 1857 report noted that baking of pies had recently developed into a considerable business, but that overall, the city’s only major commercial baking activity involved making biscuits, crackers, and ship bread (the latter known as “hard tack”). Nine such establishments operated in Philadelphia in 1857, employing a total of 125 men who made 120,000 barrels of crackers annually.

Biscuits, Crackers, and Cookies

The city’s largest mid-nineteenth-century biscuit and cracker maker was T. Wattson & Sons, which occupied a four-story building on North Front Street. Thomas Wattson (1788–1874) started the business in 1846 and in 1852 sold it to his son-in-law John T. Ricketts (1805–63). One of Rickett’s chief employees was German immigrant Godfrey Keebler (1822–93), who came to America at age ten and at nineteen settled in Philadelphia to learn the baking trade. Keebler operated a small bakery in the city in the early 1840s, moved out of the area for several years, and returned in 1850 to work for Ricketts. In 1862 he went out on his own, first opening a small bakery at Twelfth and Christian Streets in South Philadelphia and then a large factory, Godfrey Keebler’s Steam Biscuit, Cracker and Cake Bakery, at Twenty-Second and Vine Streets. By 1890 Keebler had one hundred employees. He entered into a partnership that year with Augustus Weyl (1835–1926), son of a German-born baker, to form Keebler-Weyl Baking Company, which became one of the nation’s largest cookie and cracker makers.

Another mid-nineteenth century Philadelphia baking company, J.S. Ivins & Sons, rose to prominence on the strength of its cookie products. Founded in 1846 by Job S. Ivins (d. 1894), the company had various locations on North Front Street before moving in 1898 to a large factory on North Broad Street below Ridge Avenue. Ivins produced a variety of cakes and cookies, including Spiced Wafers, a cookie that became a longtime regional favorite after its introduction in 1910.

Vienna Model Bakery of 1876

At the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, the Fleishmann brothers, natives of Austria-Hungary who were based in Cincinnati, Ohio, exhibited their “Vienna Model Bakery,” which featured a bread-baking process using packaged compressed yeast cake they had invented. The Fleishmann’s process greatly improved the commercial production of bread, and when the Exposition closed they moved the Model Bakery to Broad Street near Vine Street. From there they expanded into a nationwide baking and restaurant company, while their packaged yeast became widely used in commercial baking, ushering in the era of mass-produced, store-bought bread.

An 1882 census of Philadelphia manufacturers noted that the city was home to 934 baking establishments, employing a total of 3,240 workers, including 2,363 men, 396 women, and 481 children. Curiously, only ten of the establishments were listed as “steam” bakeries; the rest were listed as “hand.” Steam was used to heat baking ovens as well as to power machines that kneaded, mixed, and rolled dough. At a time when most industries were powered by steam engines and many manufacturing processes were automated, baking in Philadelphia was still done primarily by hand. By 1909 Philadelphia boasted 1,208 baking establishments employing 4,598 workers and ranked third in the nation in bread and bakery products.

One of the most successful local baking firms was the Freihofer Baking Company, established by brothers Charles (1860–1942) and William (1858–1932) Freihofer in Camden, New Jersey, in 1893. The company moved to Philadelphia several years later and in 1900 merged into the larger Freihofer Vienna Baking Company. By the mid-1910s Freihofer was one of the largest bread makers in the nation, with nine hundred workers in two large plants in North Philadelphia.

In 1927 Keebler-Weyl merged with a nationwide group of bakeries to form the Union Biscuit Company, whose headquarters were in Chicago. Although part of national conglomerate, Keebler-Weyl maintained major baking operations in Philadelphia. In 1934, the company began making cookies for the Girl Scouts of Greater Philadelphia Council. Local Girl Scout troops throughout the nation had been selling cookies as a fund-raising activity since the 1910s, but Keebler-Weyl was the first commercial bakery to bake and package cookies for the Girl Scouts on a council-wide scale. Other area councils joined the arrangement and Keebler-Weyl became the official baker of what soon came to be known as “Girl Scout Cookies.”

Ethnic Bakeries

The types of baked goods available in the area expanded significantly in the early twentieth century with the influx of large numbers of southern and eastern European immigrants who brought their ethnic baking traditions with them. Italian and Jewish bakeries became especially common, joining German bakeries, which had long been part of the area’s food landscape. Area residents could now purchase a wide range of baked goods in countless neighborhood ethnic bakeries throughout the region.

Local Italian bakers supplied the rolls for Philadelphia’s unique hoagie and cheesesteak sandwiches. The area’s largest roll maker, Amoroso’s Baking Company, was founded by Italian immigrant Vincenzo Amoroso (1862–1927) and his two sons in Camden, New Jersey, in 1904. In 1914 the company moved to West Philadelphia, first to Sixty-Fifth Street and Haverford Avenue and then in 1960 to South Fifty-Fifth Street, where it grew to over four hundred workers. Still family-owned in the mid-2010s, Amoroso’s moved to Bellmawr, New Jersey. In nearby Glassboro, New Jersey, Liscio’s Bakery, another large family-owned Italian bread maker, began in 1994.

German bakers introduced pretzels in the nineteenth century. By the twentieth century pretzels were a signature Philadelphia snack, widely available and popular throughout the area. The Oakdale Baking Company, established in 1903 at North Tenth Street and West Susquehanna Avenue in North Philadelphia, was a major pretzel maker in the first half of the twentieth century. Under the direction of businessman L. J. Schumaker (1878–1948), it merged with several pretzel makers nationwide to form the American Pretzel Company, which by the late 1910s controlled about 80 percent of the U.S. pretzel business.

National and Multinational Bakers

In addition to local companies, Philadelphia was home to the production facilities of large national and multinational baking firms in the twentieth century. Bond Bread, a brand name of the General Baking Company conglomerate based in Rochester, New York, established several plants in Philadelphia early in the twentieth century, including operations in Lower Northeast, South, and West Philadelphia. Cookie and cracker maker National Biscuit Company (later Nabisco) opened a plant at Broad and Glenwood Streets in North Philadelphia in the early twentieth century, then moved in the 1950s to a large plant on Roosevelt Boulevard in the Far Northeast. After going through several ownership changes, the plant closed in 2015. By this time, much of the industry had consolidated and moved out of the area, leaving just one large-scale bakery in the city, the Tasty Baking Company.

Philip Baur (1885–1951), a baker from Pittsburgh, and Herbert Morris (1882–1960), an egg salesman from Boston, founded the Tasty Baking Company in Philadelphia in 1914 with the novel idea of selling individually wrapped, fresh-baked snack cakes. Their first bakery on Sedgley Avenue in Germantown was successful, and in 1922 Baur and Morris opened a large plant on Hunting Park Avenue in Nicetown. The company’s “Tastykake” products became longtime area favorites. In 2010 the Tasty Baking Company moved to a new modern production facility at the Philadelphia Naval Business Center in South Philadelphia, where it employed eight hundred workers. In 2011 Georgia-based food conglomerate Flowers Foods acquired Tastykake and began to distribute its products nationwide.

From modest beginnings in the late seventeenth century to the growth of large-scale baking operations in the twentieth century, the Philadelphia area has a long, rich history of bakers and bakeries. The region’s signature baked goods–Italian rolls, pretzels, and snack cakes–were still made locally in the early twenty-first century, while the area continued to support a wide range of baking operations from small family-run bakeries to large industrial bakers with regional and national distribution.

Jack McCarthy is an archivist and historian who specializes in three areas of Philadelphia history: music, business and industry, and Northeast Philadelphia. He regularly writes, lectures, and gives tours on these subjects. His book  In the Cradle of Industry and Liberty: A History of Manufacturing in Philadelphia was published in 2016, and he curated the 2017–18 exhibit Risk & Reward: Entrepreneurship and the Making of Philadelphia for the Abraham Lincoln Foundation of the Union League of Philadelphia. He serves as consulting archivist for the Philadelphia Orchestra and Mann Music Center and directs a project for Jazz Bridge entitled Documenting & Interpreting the Philly Jazz Legacy, funded by the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. (Author information current at time of publication.)

Copyright 2019, Rutgers University

P. Maison's Biscuit Bakery, 134 N Front Street

Library Company of Philadelphia

This lithograph published c. 1846 illustrates the typical size of a bakery or biscuit-making company in Philadelphia in the mid-nineteenth-century. Located at 134 N. Front Street, P. Maison’s biscuit bakery occupied a building near T. Wattson & Sons larger company at 129 N. Front Street.

Receipt from Christopher Ludwig for William Fisher

Historical Society of Pennsylvania

German-born Christopher Ludwig, one of the most successful immigrant bakers in Philadelphia in the eighteenth century, did business with a number of prominent customers – and kept track of each of these transactions. On February 15, 1758, Ludwig signed this receipt for William Fisher, who paid the baker “four pounds, twelve shillings, and six pence in full for bread delivered him.” This amount translates to over five hundred pounds in the early twenty-first century, and likely resulted from Ludwig delivering a large quantity of baked goods to Fisher’s home. Ludwig’s customer in 1758, William Fisher served as the mayor of Philadelphia years later in 1773. Ludwig also rose in the social ranks, ultimately being appointed Superintendent of Bakers for the Continental Army in 1777.

T. Wattson & Sons Biscuit Bakery, 129 N Front Street

In 1846, Thomas Wattson established a biscuit bakery, housed in the four-story building on North Front Street depicted in this lithograph published in the same year. Compared to other bakeries in the city, T. Wattson & Sons was a sizable company. Bakeries commonly operated in small buildings or in small areas of larger buildings – so to occupy an entire four-story building, as Wattson’s biscuit bakery did, was unusual.

In 1852, Wattson sold his bakery – by then the largest biscuit and cracker manufacturing company in Philadelphia – to his son-in-law, John T. Ricketts. Employees of Ricketts’ bakery included Godfrey Keebler, founder of the famous Keebler cookie company. Keebler worked for T. Wattson & Sons for just over ten years before he opened his own bakery, first settling into a small building in South Philadelphia and then expanding into a large factory at Twenty-Second and Vine Streets.

1932 Portrait of William J. Freihofer

William Freihofer established the Freihofer Baking Company with his brother Charles in Camden, New Jersey, in 1893. A few years later the brothers moved their bakery to Philadelphia, where it soon became one of the largest bread makers in the nation. When William passed away in 1932, a local newspaper published this portrait alongside the announcement of his death. Charles, who survived his brother by ten years, continued to run the company after his brother’s death.

Freihofer's Bakery Float at the Peace Jubilee Parade, October 1898

The Freihofer Baking Company brothers, William and Charles, had recently moved their baking company from Camden, New Jersey, to Philadelphia when the city celebrated the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898. In just one of the events held over the course of the three-day celebration, the Freihofers joined in the Peace Jubilee Parade on Broad Street with a horse-drawn float (shown in this photograph) accompanied by marching employees. The float was accessorized with portraits of the Freihofer brothers in frames decorated with loaves of bread, leaving no doubt about what their company produced.

Freihofer's Marching Bakers at the Peace Jubilee Parade, October 1898

At the Philadelphia Peace Jubilee Parade, held in October 1898 to celebrate the end of the Spanish-American War, dozens of bakers from the Freihofer Baking Company marched on Broad Street with loaves of bread hoisted against their shoulders.

Related Topics

• Workshop of the World
• Greater Philadelphia
• Philadelphia and the Nation

Time Periods

• Twenty-First Century
• Twentieth Century after 1945
• Twentieth Century to 1945
• Nineteenth Century after 1854
• Nineteenth Century to 1854
• Colonial Era
• South Philadelphia
• Philadelphia Cream Cheese
• Restaurants

Related Reading

Berg, Harry D. “Merchants and Mercantile Life in Colonial Philadelphia, 1748–1763.” Ph.D. dissertation, State University of Iowa, 1940.

Blodget, Lorin. Census of Manufacturers of Philadelphia . Philadelphia: Dickson & Gilling 1883.

Freedley, Edwin. Philadelphia and Its Manufactures . Philadelphia: Young & Company, 1859.

Condit, William Ward. “Christopher Ludwig: Patriotic Gingerbread Baker.” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 81, no. 4 (October 1957): 365–90.

Haavik, Benjamin Knute. Eden Hall: A Cultural Historic Landscape . M.A. thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1998.

Macfarlane, John James. Manufacturing in Philadelphia, 1683–1912 . Philadelphia: Philadelphia Commercial Museum, 1912.

Papers of John Thomas Ricketts, 1787–1904 , finding aid. Alexandria Library, Alexandria, Va. Accessed online March 2016.

Smith, Anna Bustill. “The Bustill Family.” Journal of Negro History 10, no. 4 (1925): 638–64.

Walker, Juliet E. K. The History of Black Business in America: Capitalism, Race, Entrepreneurship . Vol. 1, To 1865 . 2nd edition. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009.

Related Collections

• Freihofer Baking Company Records, Record Group 686 Urban Archives, Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Philadelphia.
• Papers of John Thomas Ricketts, 1787–1904 Alexandria Library Alexandria, Va.

Related Places

• Cyrus Bustill historical marker
• Tasty Baking Company
• Oakdale Baking Company building

Backgrounders

Connecting Headlines with History

• No skill tests, no background checks, just a life-saving job at a bakery (WHYY, April 20, 2017)
• South Philly bakery's papal pastries (WHYY, October 8, 2015)
• Philly Eats the World: Essen Bakery (WHYY, August 14, 2018)
• Philadelphia'a Essential Bakeries (PhillyEater.com)
• Best of Philly: Best Bakery (PhillyMag.com)
• Philadelphia's Six Best Bakeries Happily Mix Old and New (TravelandLeisure.com)

Connecting the Past with the Present, Building Community, Creating a Legacy

Better Baking Bible

Cake, recipes, cookies, cupcakes, & easy desserts for the modern, busy woman.

Addicted to Baking – My Favorite Essay on Baking as a Hobby

If you’re like me, you are probably obsessed with baking, to the point that it’s your every-day hobby.

Below is an essay example about “Baking as my hobby” written by Lauren Bradshaw from CustomWritings – personalized essay writing service established in 2008. You can learn from this sample and write perfect college essays.

As the only boy with five sisters, it wasn’t common that I was attracted to the kitchen. I didn’t particularly enjoy cooking except for when I am doing the steaks with my dad. However, there is just one part of cooking that I am attracted to, baking .

Growing up, I used to love cakes. I would cry for hours unending until my parents got me a piece. I was so addicted to chocolate cake, and my mum used it against me. She would tell me to do the dishes, fold my laundry, or even water the garden for a piece of chocolate cake.

I would gladly do all that and more to get my piece, and my mum is great at baking. Her cake is always near perfect, and she knows how to spice them up with fruits and other sweet additives. Watching her bake in the kitchen at special occasions like Christmas, birthdays and Thanksgiving brought me so much happiness. While some of my sisters didn’t like the idea of baking, I was glued to my mum whenever she baked and asked her many questions about the process then, although some of them were annoying.

As a little boy of seven, I could attempt to bake a simple carrot cake. My love for the chocolate was, and carrot cake became my new cool. On my 10th year, I baked my first cheesecake for the family and got plenty of positive feedback from my mum, sisters, and my dad too.

As I grew, my interest in cake decorations intensified. I would go to parties and carefully observe the decorations on the cakes. Then, I would come home and ask my mum what she thought about it. I got my first camera and took tons of cake pictures I found interesting. As my curiosity grew, my family adopted the idea that I was the chief baker. I took up that position with so much joy as I looked forward to pleasing them. I baked all kinds of easy cakes for deserts. I bought cookbooks and learned new ways to make a great cake without fuss.

From cakes to pies and delicious bread, my love for baking grew with me to my teens until I had to get to college. My mum was crying because since I took over the baking responsibility, she has been free and had not baked for years. My family was sad, but I was devastated because I may have to focus on my studies and lose my passion for baking.

Dad didn’t want me to go into the confectionary business without at least getting a professional certificate, and I correctly understood his plight. I got to college, and my first year was hectic, so I had no time for my hobbies, especially baking. I made new friends and found some that lived around. Made a few visits and found out one of my close friends lives with his family and they were open to my visits.

One day we were all having dinner, and I talked about my baking expertise and how I missed doing what I love most. The family suggested I come around and bake for an upcoming birthday. I was so excited to get another opportunity to display my talent.  I showed up very early on the day before the celebration and got down to work with the help of my friend’s family. They were skeptical at first because I was a boy, but when we were halfway into the process, they were amazed at my knowledge and skills on baking. 

The cake turned out better than they expected, to my amazement. I did a unique decoration, and the celebrant never stopped thanking me. I got a few recommendations and did other side baking gigs while in college, and I was happy with the chance I got.

Baking was my way of relaxing. I loved the smile and people’s faces when they taste my cake or pie, and it gave me a strong push to come up with something better. I loved the compliments I get from mum and dad anytime I bake something extraordinary. They were proud I found something I love and could keep to it. 

Each time I bake, I feel a spark of joy in my soul. It felt like I was born to mix flour and make magic from it. I have other hobbies, no doubt, but none can compare to my love for baking. 

At the end of college, I took to another profession but will always bake whenever I got the chance. Baking will always be special to me, and I hope to pass down my skills to my children.

5 thoughts on “ Addicted to Baking – My Favorite Essay on Baking as a Hobby ”

HEY THATS REALLY NICE AND U ARE SAME AS ME I LOVE BAKING

love the essay your love of baking and mine is same

I love your story, appreciate you sharing it.

Yeah! The essay was wonderful, I’m fond of baking and your amazing essay.

BAKING IS THE BEST!!!

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Economics > General Economics

Title: an essay on the history of dsge models.

Abstract: Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) models, which are nowadays a crucial element of the set of quantitative tools that policy-makers have, did not emerge spontaneously. They rely on previously established ideas in Economics and relatively recent advancements in Mathematics. I aim to provide a comprehensive coverage of their history, starting from the pioneering Neoclassical general equilibrium theories and eventually reaching the New Neoclassical Synthesis (NNS). I thoroughly present the mathematical tools involved in formulating a DSGE model. I claim that this history has a mixed nature rather than an absolutist or relativist one, that the NNS may have emerged due to the complementary nature of New Classical and New Keynesian theories, and that the recent adoption and development of DSGE models by central banks from different countries has entailed a departure from the goal of building a universally valid theory that Economics has always had. The latter means that DSGE modeling has landed not without loss of generality.

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