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Low-protein, soft-wheat flour is appropriate for cakes, pie crusts, cookies (sweet biscuits), and other products not requiring great expansion and elastic structure. High-protein, hard-wheat flour is adapted to bread, hard rolls, soda crackers, and Danish pastry, all requiring elastic dough and often expanded to low densities by the leavening action.

Leavening agents

Pie doughs and similar products are usually unleavened, but most bakery products are leavened, or aerated, by gas bubbles developed naturally or folded in. Leavening may result from yeast or bacterial fermentation, from chemical reactions, or from the distribution in the batter of atmospheric or injected gases.


All commercial breads, except salt-rising types and some rye bread, are leavened with bakers’ yeast, composed of living cells of the yeast strain Saccharomyces cerevisiae. A typical yeast addition level might be 2 percent of the dough weight. Bakeries receive yeast in the form of compressed cakes containing about 70 percent water or as dry granules containing about 8 percent water. Dry yeast, more resistant to storage deterioration than compressed yeast, requires rehydration before it is added to the other ingredients. “Cream” yeast, a commercial variety of bakers’ yeast made into a fluid by the addition of extra water, is more convenient to dispense and mix than compressed yeast, but it also has a shorter storage life and requires additional equipment for handling.

Bakers’ yeast performs its leavening function by fermenting such sugars as glucose, fructose, maltose, and sucrose. It cannot use lactose, the predominant sugar of milk, or certain other carbohydrates. The principal products of fermentation are carbon dioxide, the leavening agent, and ethanol, an important component of the aroma of freshly baked bread. Other yeast activity products also flavour the baked product and change the dough’s physical properties.

The rate at which gas is evolved by yeast during the various stages of dough preparation is important to the success of bread manufacture. Gas production is partially governed by the rate at which fermentable carbohydrates become available to the yeast. The sugars naturally present in the flour and the initial stock of added sugar are rapidly exhausted. A relatively quiescent period follows, during which the yeast cells become adapted to the use of maltose, a sugar constantly being produced in the dough by the action of diastatic enzymes on starch. The rate of yeast activity is also governed by temperature and osmotic pressure, the latter primarily a function of the water content and salt concentration.


Baking soda

Layer cakes, cookies (sweet biscuits), biscuits, and many other bakery products are leavened by carbon dioxide from added sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). Added without offsetting amounts of an acidic substance, sodium bicarbonate tends to make dough alkaline, causing flavour deterioration and discoloration and slowing carbon dioxide release. Addition of an acid-reacting substance promotes vigorous gas evolution and maintains dough acidity within a favourable range.

Carbon dioxide produced from sodium bicarbonate is initially in dissolved or combined form. The rate of gas release affects the size of the bubbles produced in the dough, consequently influencing the grain, volume, and texture of the finished product. Much research has been devoted to the development of leavening acids capable of maintaining the rate of gas release within the desired range. Acids such as acetic, from vinegar, or lactic, from sour milk, usually act too quickly; satisfactory compounds include cream of tartar (potassium acid tartrate), sodium aluminum sulfate (alum), sodium acid pyrophosphate, and various forms of calcium phosphate.

Baking powder

Instead of adding soda and leavening acids separately, most commercial bakeries and domestic bakers use baking powder, a mixture of soda and acids in appropriate amounts and with such added diluents as starch, simplifying measuring and improving stability. The end products of baking-powder reaction are carbon dioxide and some blandly flavoured harmless salts. All baking powders meeting basic standards have virtually identical amounts of available carbon dioxide, differing only in reaction time. Most commercial baking powders are of the double-acting type, giving off a small amount of available carbon dioxide during the mixing and makeup stages, then remaining relatively inert until baking raises the batter temperature. This type of action eliminates excessive loss of leavening gas, which may occur in batter left in an unbaked condition for long periods.

Entrapped air and vapour

Angel food cakes, sponge cakes, and similar products are customarily prepared without either yeast or chemical leaveners. Instead, they are leavened by air entrapped in the product through vigorous beating. This method requires a readily foaming ingredient capable of retaining the air bubbles, such as egg whites. To produce a cake of fine and uniform internal structure, the pockets of air folded in during beating are rapidly subdivided into small bubbles with such mixing utensils as wire whips, or whisks.

The vaporization of volatile fluids (e.g., ethanol) under the influence of oven heat can have a leavening effect. Water-vapour pressure, too low to be significant at normal temperatures, exerts substantial pressure on the interior walls of bubbles already formed by other means as the interior of the loaf or cake approaches the boiling point. The expansion of such puff pastry as used for napoleons (rich desserts of puff pastry layers and whipped cream or custard) and vol-au-vents (puff pastry shells filled with meat, fowl, fish, or other mixtures) is entirely due to water-vapour pressure.



The common fats used in bakery products are lard, beef fats, and hydrogenated vegetable oils. Butter is used in some premium and specialty products as a texturizer and to add flavour, but its high cost precludes extensive use. Cottonseed oil and soybean oil are the most common processed vegetable oils used. Corn, peanut, and coconut oils are used to a limited extent; fats occurring in other ingredients, such as egg yolks, chocolate, and nut butters, can have a shortening effect if the ingredients are present in sufficient quantity.

Breads and rolls often contain only 1 or 2 percent shortening; cakes will have 10 to 20 percent; Danish pastries prepared according to the authentic formula may have about 30 percent; pie crusts may contain even more. High usage levels require those shortenings that melt above room temperature; butter and liquid shortenings, with their lower melting point, tend to leak from the product.

Commercial shortenings may include antioxidants, to retard rancidity, and emulsifiers, to improve the shortening effect. Colours and flavours simulating butter may also be added. Margarines, emulsions of fat, water, milk solids, and salt, are popular bakery ingredients.

Fats of any kind have a destructive effect on meringues and other protein-based foams; small traces of oil left on the mixing utensils can deflate an angel food cake to unacceptably high density.


Water is the liquid most commonly added to doughs. Milk is usually added to commercial preparations in dried form, and any moisture added in the form of eggs and butter is usually minimal. Water is not merely a diluent or inert constituent; it affects every aspect of the finished product, and careful adjustment of the amount of liquid is essential to make the dough or batter adaptable to the processing method. If dough is too wet, it will stick to equipment and have poor response to shaping and transfer operations; if too dry, it will not shape or leaven properly.

Water hydrates gluten, permitting it to aggregate in the form of a spongy cellular network, the structural basis of most bakery products. It provides a medium in which yeast can metabolize sugars to form carbon dioxide and flavouring components and allows diffusion of nutrients and metabolites throughout the mass. Water is an indispensable component of the baking-powder reaction, and it allows starch to gelatinize during baking and prevents interior browning of bakery products.

Water impurities affect dough properties. Water preferred for baking is usually of medium hardness (50 to 100 parts per million) with a neutral pH (degree of acidity), or slightly acid (low pH). Water that is too soft can result in sticky doughs, while very hard water may retard dough expansion by toughening the gluten (calcium ions, particularly, promote cross-linking of gluten protein molecules). Water sufficiently alkaline to raise the dough pH may have a deleterious effect on fermentation and on flour enzymes. Although strongly flavoured contaminants may affect the acceptability of the finished product, chlorides and fluorides at concentrations usually found in water supplies have little influence on bread doughs.


The differences between yolks and whites must be recognized in considering the effect of eggs on bakery products. Yolks contain about 50 percent solids, of which 60 percent or more is strongly emulsified fat, and are used in bakery foods for their effect on colour, flavour, and texture. Egg whites, containing only about 12 percent solids, primarily protein, and no fat, are important primarily for their texturizing function and give foams of low density and good stability when beaten. When present in substantial amounts, they tend to promote small, uniform cell size and relatively large volume. Meringues and angel food cakes are dependent on egg white foams for their basic structure. Although fats and oils greatly diminish its foaming power, the white still contributes to the structure of layer cakes and similar confections containing substantial amounts of both shortening and egg products.

Egg products are available to bakers in frozen or dried form. Few commercial bakers break fresh eggs for ingredients, because of labour costs, unstable market conditions, and sanitary considerations. Many bakers use dried egg products because of their greater convenience and superior storage stability over frozen eggs. Processed and stored correctly, dried egg products are the functional equivalent of the fresh material, although flavour of the baked goods may be affected adversely at very high usage levels.


Normal wheat flour contains about 1 percent sugars. Most are fermentable compounds, such as sucrose, maltose, glucose, and fructose. Additional maltose is formed during fermentation by the action of amyloytic enzymes (from malt and flour) on the starch. Glucose and sucrose are the sugars most frequently added to doughs and batters. The action of yeast rapidly converts the sucrose to fructose and glucose (i.e., invert sugar). Invert sugar can also be added.

Sweetening power is an important property of added sugars, but sugars also provide fermentables for yeast activity. Crust colour development is related to the amount of reducing sugars present, and a dough in which the sugars have been thoroughly depleted by yeast will produce a pale crust.

Doughs with high concentrations of dissolved substances retard fermentation because of the effect on yeast of the high osmotic pressure (low water activity) of the aqueous phase. Sugars constitute the bulk of dissolved materials in most doughs. For this reason, sweet yeast-leavened goods develop gas and expand more slowly than bread doughs.


Yeast-leavened products

Breads and rolls

Most of the bakery foods consumed throughout the world are breads and rolls made from yeast-leavened doughs. The yeast-fermentation process leads to the development of desirable flavour and texture, and such products are nutritionally superior to products of the equivalent chemically leavened doughs, since yeast cells themselves add a wide assortment of vitamins and good quality protein.

White bread

Satisfactory white bread can be made from flour, water, salt, and yeast. (A “sourdough” addition may be substituted for commercial yeast.) Yeast-raised breads based on this simple mixture include Italian-style bread and French or Vienna breads. Such breads have a hard crust, are relatively light in colour, with a coarse and tough crumb, and flavour that is excellent in the fresh bread but deteriorates in a few hours. In the United States, commercially produced breads of this type are often modified by the addition of dough improvers, yeast foods, mold inhibitors, vitamins, minerals, and small quantities of enriching materials such as milk solids or shortening. Formulas may vary greatly from one bakery to another and between different sections of the country. The standard low-density, soft-crust bread and rolls constituting the major proportion of breads and rolls sold in the United States contain greater quantities of enriching ingredients than the lean breads described above.

Whole wheat bread

Whole wheat bread, using a meal made substantially from the entire wheat kernel instead of flour, is a dense, rather tough, dark product. Breads sold as wheat or part-whole-wheat products contain a mixture of whole grain meal with sufficient white flour to produce satisfactory dough expansion.

Rye bread


Potato bread


Sweet breads


Sweet goods made from mixtures similar to bread doughs include “raised” doughnuts, Danish pastries, and coffee cakes. Richer in shortening, milk, and sugar than bread doughs, sweet doughs often contain whole eggs, egg yolks, egg whites, or corresponding dried products. The enriching ingredients alter the taste, produce flakier texture, and improve nutritional quality. Spices such as nutmeg, mace, cinnamon, coriander, and ginger are frequently used for sweet-dough products; other common adjuncts include vanilla, nuts and nut pastes, peels or oils of lemon or orange, raisins, candied fruit pieces, jams, and jellies.

Danish dough

Although various portion-size sweet goods are often called “Danish pastry,” the name originally referred only to products made by a special roll-in procedure, in which yeast-leavened dough sheets are interleaved with layers of butter and the layers are reduced in thickness, then folded and resheeted to obtain many thin layers of alternating shortening and dough. Danish doughs ordinarily receive little fermentation. Before the fat is rolled in, there is a period of 20 to 30 minutes in the refrigerator, allowing gas and flavour to develop. Proof time, fermentation of the piece in its final shape, is usually only 20 to 30 minutes, at lower temperatures. When properly made, these doughs yield flaky baked products, rich in shortening, with glossy crusts.

Dough preparation

commercial bread making [Credit: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.]commercial bread makingEncyclopædia Britannica, Inc.The process most commonly employed in preparing dough for white bread and many specialty breads is known as the sponge-and-dough method, in which the ingredients are mixed in two distinct stages. Another conventional dough-preparation procedure, used commonly in preparing sweet doughs but rarely regular bread doughs, is the straight-dough method, in which all the ingredients are mixed in one step before fermentation. In a less conventional method, known as the “no-time” method, the fermentation step is eliminated entirely. These processes are described below.

The sponge-and-dough method

horizontal mixer [Credit: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.]horizontal mixerEncyclopædia Britannica, Inc.The sponge-and-dough mixing method consists of two distinct stages. In the first stage, the mixture, called the sponge, usually contains one-half to three-fourths of the flour, all of the yeast, yeast foods, and malt, and enough water to make a stiff dough. Shortening may be added at this stage, although it is usually added later, and one-half to three-fourths of the salt may be added to control fermentation. The sponge is customarily mixed in a large, horizontal dough mixer, processing about one ton per batch, and usually constructed with heat-exchange jackets, allowing temperature control. The objectives of mixing are a nearly homogeneous blend of the ingredients and “developing” of the dough by formation of the gluten into elongated and interlaced fibres that will form the basic structure of the loaf. Because intense shearing actions must be avoided, the usual dough mixer has several horizontal bars, oriented parallel to the body of the mixer, rotating slowly at 35 to 75 revolutions per minute, stretching and kneading the dough by their action. A typical mixing cycle would be about 12 minutes.

The mixed sponge is dumped into a trough, a shallow rectangular metal tank on wheels, and placed in an area of controlled temperature and humidity (e.g., 27 °C [80 °F] and 75 percent relative humidity), where it is fermented until it begins to decline in volume. The time required for this process, called the drop or break, depends on such variables as temperature, type of flour, amount of yeast, absorption, and amount of malt, which are frequently adjusted to produce a drop in about three to five hours.

At the second, or dough, stage, the sponge is returned to the mixer, and the remaining ingredients are added. The dough is developed to an optimum consistency, then either returned to the fermentation room or allowed “floor time” for further maturation.

Advantages of the sponge-and-dough method include: (1) a saving in the amount of yeast (about 20 percent less is required than for a straight dough), (2) greater volume and more-desirable texture and grain, and (3) greater flexibility allowed in operations because, in contrast to straight doughs (which must be taken up when ready), sponges can be held for later processing without marked deterioration of the final product.

The sponge method, however, involves extra handling of the dough, additional weighing and measuring, and a second mixing and thus has the disadvantage of increasing labour, equipment, and power costs.

The straight-dough method

Two of the many possible variations in the straight-dough process include the remixed straight-dough process, with a small portion of the water added at the second mix, and the no-punch method, involving extremely vigorous mixing. The straight-dough method is rarely used for white breads because it is not sufficiently adaptable to allow compensation for fluctuations in ingredient properties.

“No-time” methods

One set of procedures intended to eliminate the traditional bulk fermentation step are the “no-time” methods. Popular in the United Kingdom and Australia, these processes generally require an extremely energy-intensive mixing step, sometimes performed in a partially vacuumized chamber. Rather high additions of chemical oxidants, reducing agents, and other dough modifiers are almost always required in order to produce the desired physical properties. “No-time” is actually a misnomer, since there are always small amounts of floor time (periods when the dough is awaiting further processing) during which maturing actions lead to improvements in the dough’s physical properties. Even then, the flavour of the bread cannot be expected to match that of a traditionally processed loaf.


After the mass of dough has completed fermentation (and has been remixed if the sponge-and-dough process is employed), it is processed by a series of devices loosely classified as makeup equipment. In the manufacture of pan bread, makeup equipment includes the divider, the rounder, the intermediate proofer, the molder, and the panner.


dough divider [Credit: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.]dough dividerEncyclopædia Britannica, Inc.The filled trough containing remixed dough is moved to the divider area or to the floor above the divider. The dough is dropped into the divider hopper, which cuts it into loaf-size pieces. Two methods are employed. In the volumetric method, the dough is forced into pockets of a known volume. The pocket contents are cut off from the main dough mass and then ejected onto a conveyor leading to the rounder. When density is kept constant, weight and volume of the dough pieces are roughly the same. In the weight-based method, a cylindrical rope of dough is continuously extruded through an orifice at a fixed rate and is cut off by a knife-edged rotor at fixed intervals. Since the dough is of consistent density, the cut pieces are of uniform weight. Like the pocket-cut pieces, the cylindrical pieces are conveyed to the rounder.



dough rounder [Credit: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.]dough rounderEncyclopædia Britannica, Inc.Dough pieces leaving the divider are irregular in shape, with sticky cut surfaces from which the gas can readily diffuse. Their gluten structure is somewhat disoriented and unsuitable for molding. The rounder closes these cut surfaces, giving each dough piece a smooth and dry exterior; forms a relatively thick and continuous skin around the dough piece, reorienting the gluten structure; and shapes the dough into a ball for easier handling in subsequent steps. It performs these functions by rolling the well-floured dough piece around the surface of a drum or cone, moving it upward or downward along this surface by means of a spiral track. As a result of this action, the surface is dried both by the even distribution of dusting flour and by dehydration resulting from exposure to air; the gas cells near the surface of the ball are collapsed, forming a thick layer inhibiting the diffusion of gases from the dough; and the dough piece assumes an approximately spherical shape.

Intermediate proofing

Dough leaving the rounder is almost completely degassed. It lacks extensibility, tears easily, has rubbery consistency, and has poor molding properties. To restore a flexible, pliable structure, the dough piece must be allowed to rest while fermentation proceeds. This is accomplished by letting the dough ball travel through an enclosed cabinet, the intermediate proofer, for several minutes. Physical changes, other than gas accumulation, occurring during this period are not yet understood, but there are apparently alterations in the molecular structure of the dough rendering it more responsive to subsequent operations. Upon leaving the intermediate proofer, the dough is more pliable and elastic, its volume is increased by gas accumulation, and its skin is firmer and drier.

Most intermediate proofers are the overhead type, in which the principal part of the cabinet is raised above the floor, allowing space for other makeup machinery beneath it. Interior humidity and temperature depend on humidity accumulating from the loaves and on ambient temperatures.


drum molder [Credit: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.]drum molderEncyclopædia Britannica, Inc.The molder receives pieces of dough from the intermediate proofer and shapes them into cylinders ready to be placed in the pans. There are several types of molders, but all have four functions in common: sheeting, curling, rolling, and sealing. The dough as it comes from the intermediate proofer is a flattened spheroid; the first function of the molder is to flatten it into a thick sheet, usually by means of two or more consecutive pairs of rollers, each succeeding pair set more closely together than the preceding pair. The sheeted dough is curled into a loose cylinder by a special set of rolls or by a pair of canvas belts. The spiral of dough in the cylinder is not adherent upon leaving the curling section, and the next operation of the molder is to seal the dough piece, allowing it to expand without separating into layers. The conventional molder rolls the dough cylinder between a large drum and a smooth-surfaced semicircular compression board. Clearance between the drum and board is gradually reduced, and the dough, constantly in contact with both surfaces, becomes transversely compressed.


An automatic panning device is an integral part of most modern molders. As empty pans, carried on a conveyor, pass the end of the machine, the loaves are transferred from the molder and positioned in the pans by a compressed air-operated device. Before the filled pans are taken to the oven, the dough undergoes another fermentation, or pan-proofing, for about 20 minutes at temperatures of 40 to 50 °C (100 to 120 °F).

Continuous bread making

Many steps in conventional dough preparation and makeup have been fully automated, but none of the processes is truly continuous. In continuous systems, the dough is handled without interruption from the time the ingredients are mixed until it is deposited in the pan. The initial fermentation process is still essentially a batch procedure, but in the continuous bread-making line the traditional sponge is replaced by a liquid pre-ferment, called the broth or brew. The brew consists of a mixture of water, yeast, sugar, and portions of the flour and other ingredients, fermented for a few hours before being mixed into the dough.

After the brew has finished fermenting, it is fed along with the dry ingredients into a mixing device, which mixes all ingredients into a homogeneous mass. The batterlike material passes through a dough pump regulating the flow and delivering the mixture to a developing apparatus, where kneading work is applied. The developer is the key equipment in the continuous line. Processing about 50 kilograms (100 pounds) each 90 seconds, it changes the batter from a fluid mass having no organized structure, little extensibility, and inadequate gas retention to a smooth, elastic, film-forming dough. The dough then moves out of the developer into a metering device that constantly extrudes the dough and intermittently severs a loaf-size piece, which falls into a pan passing beneath.

Although ingredients are generally the same as those used in batch processes, closer control and more rigid specifications are necessary in continuous processing in order to assure the satisfactory operation of each unit. Changes in conditions cannot readily be made to compensate for changes occurring in ingredient properties. Oxidizers, such as bromate and iodate, are added routinely to compensate for the smaller amount of oxygen brought into the dough during mixing.

The use of fermented brews has been widely accepted in plants practicing traditional dough preparation and makeup. The handling of a fermentation mixture through pumps, pipes, valves, and tanks greatly increases efficiency and control in both batch-type and continuous systems.

Baking and depanning


The output of all bread-making systems, batch or continuous, is usually keyed to the oven, probably the most critical equipment in the bakery. Most modern commercial bakeries use either the tunnel oven, consisting of a metal belt passing through a connected series of baking chambers open only at the ends, or the tray oven, with a rigid baking platform carried on chain belts. Other types include the peel oven, having a fixed hearth of stone or brick on which the loaves are placed with a wooden paddle or peel; the reel oven, with shelves rotating on a central axle in Ferris wheel fashion; the rotating hearth oven; and the draw plate oven.

Advances in high-capacity baking equipment include a chamber oven with a conveyor that carries pan assemblies (called straps) along a roughly spiral path through an insulated baking chamber. The straps are automatically added to the conveyor before it enters the oven and then automatically removed and the bread dumped at the conveyor’s exit point. Although the conveyor is of a complex design, the oven as a whole is considerably simpler than most other high-capacity baking equipment and can be operated with very little labour. As a further increase in efficiency, the conveyor can also be designed to carry filled pans in a continuous path through a pan-proofing enclosure and then through the oven.

In small to medium-size retail bakeries, baking may be done in a rack oven. This consists of a chamber, perhaps two to three metres high, that is heated by electric elements or gas burners. The rack consists of a steel framework having casters at the bottom and supporting a vertical array of shelves. Bread pans containing unbaked dough pieces are placed on the shelves before the rack is pushed mechanically or manually into the oven. While baking is taking place, the rack may remain stationary or be slowly rotated.

Most ovens are heated by gas burned within the chamber, although oil or electricity may be used. Burners are sometimes isolated from the main chamber, heat transfer then occurring through induced currents of air. Baking reactions in the oven are both physical and chemical in nature. Physical reactions include film formation, gas expansion, reduction of gas solubility, and alcohol evaporation. Chemical reactions include yeast fermentation, carbon dioxide formation, starch gelatinization, gluten coagulation, sugar caramelization, and browning.


Automatic depanners, removing the loaves from the pans, either invert the pans, jarring them to dislodge the bread, or pick the loaves out of the pans by means of suction cups attached to belts.

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