Baking

Traditions

Baking is a universal technique, with each culture adding its own flair. French baking, for instance, is renowned for its precision and artistry, often using butter-rich doughs and intricate pastries like the Croissant. Italian baking celebrates simplicity and regional ingredients, as seen in the Margherita Pizza, which highlights tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil. Turkish baking, with its roots in Ottoman traditions, features layered and syrup-soaked delights such as Baklava. In the Middle East, flatbreads like Naan are baked in tandoor ovens, providing a smoky flavor and soft texture.

How It Works

Convective and radiant dry heat at 150-230°C drives three parallel transformations: water vaporizes from dough surfaces and sets a crust, starches gelatinize above 60°C while gluten coagulates near 75°C, and Maillard browning of crust amino acids with reducing sugars generates pyrazines and melanoidins. CO2 from yeast or chemical leaveners expands before the protein matrix locks.

In Practice

Across the World

Through Time

Egyptian leavened bread c. 1500 BCE established the wild-yeast lineage; Roman pistores codified commercial bakeries. The 1683 Vienna kipferl and Marie-Antoine Carême's early-19th-century Parisian pâtisserie shaped Western technique. Raymond Calvel's 1980s autolyse method and Chad Robertson's *Tartine Bread* (2010) reset the modern artisan canon.

Related cooking knowledge

Every Dish