Review Bread baking – A review Arpita Mondal, A.K. Datta * Agricultural and Food Engineering Department, IIT, Kharagpur 721 302, India Received 23 May 2007; received in revised form 10 October 2007; accepted 19 November 2007 Available online 23 November 2007 Abstract Bread is a basic dietary item dating back to the Neolithic era, which is prepared by baking that is carried out in oven. Control of the production and distribution of bread has been used as a means of exercising political influence over the populace for at least the last two millennia. Several experimental and mathematical models are developed for clear understanding of baking. This article presents a review of published literatures on experimental and mathematical studies on bread baking during the last two decades. Baking technology, evo- lution of baking ingredients, thermophysical properties of bread as functions of moisture content and baking time are reviewed. Exper- imental and simulative studies on profiling of temperature, moisture content, pore volume, expansion ratio during baking are also reviewed. Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Bread; Experimental; Mathematical models; Crust Contents 1. Introduction ............................................................................... 465 2. Basic ingredients of bread...................................................................... 466 3. Baking technology ........................................................................... 467 4. Properties of bread .......................................................................... 467 5. Experimental studies on baking.................................................................. 469 6. Studies on crust ............................................................................. 470 7. Mathematical modeling ....................................................................... 471 8. Conclusion ................................................................................ 472 References ................................................................................ 473 1. Introduction Bread is a basic dietary item dating back to the Neolithic era, which is prepared by baking that is carried out in oven. The first bread was made around 10,000 years BC or over 12,000 years in the past, which may have been developed by deliberate experimentation with water and grain flour. Egyptians are the pioneers who make the art of bread mak- ing popular throughout the world. Control of the produc- tion and distribution of bread has been used as a means of exercising political influence over the populace for at least 0260-8774/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2007.11.014 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 3222 283118. E-mail address: akd@agfe.iitkgp.ernet.in (A.K. Datta). www.elsevier.com/locate/jfoodeng Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Journal of Food Engineering 86 (2008) 465–474