Contents
Bread is flour, water, salt and a way of putting gas into the mixture. Every loaf in the world is a variation on those four things, and the enormous differences between them come from a small number of choices: which grain, how much water, what raises it, how long it is left alone, and what it is baked in or on. This is the landing page for all of that.
Part of Baking. For recipes rather than method, see bread recipes over in Recipes.
By method
- yeast and leavening — commercial yeast, a few hours, predictable results. The default for a first loaf.
- sourdough — a wild flour-and-water culture instead of packet yeast. Slower, sourer, and the only practical way to raise a high-percentage rye loaf. Also rye sourdough.
- quick breads — chemically leavened and baked immediately. Soda bread, cornbread, banana bread, biscuits, muffins.
- flatbreads — the oldest and most widespread family, cooked fast on a hot surface rather than in an oven.
- pan and skillet breads — bread shaped by its vessel: tin loaves and Pullman tins in the oven, cast iron on the stovetop.
Enriched breads — brioche, challah, milk bread, babka — sit between bread and pastry, and the pages that explain why are baking fats and sugar in baking.
By ingredient
- flour — the protein table, the six wheat classes, and what each one bakes. The most consequential single choice.
- gluten — what that protein does once water reaches it, and how to develop or suppress it.
- baker's percentages — how to read hydration and salt as numbers rather than as cups.
- milling your own flour — berries keep for decades, flour for months.
- Grains: Grains · Wheat · rye · oats · Buckwheat · Sorghum · corn · Wheat Berries
By place
bread-world-table is the survey — roughly a hundred breads with their region and type. It runs from baguette, ciabatta and pumpernickel through challah, pita, sangak and naan, on to mantou, injera, arepa, pão de queijo and rewena bread, and it is the best way into the traditions the method pages only sketch.
See also noodles and breads and pita and hummus.
Baking it
- ovens and heat — thermostat swing, steam, oven spring, and doneness by internal temperature rather than by the clock
- baking equipment — the scale and the thermometer before anything else
- Off-oven routes: air fry Recipes, outdoor cooking, easiest ways to cook
Buying and selling it
- bakeries — the bakery as a business, and why bread is priced the way it is
- Ohio bread companies — the large wholesale bakers headquartered in Ohio
- cottage food baking — selling out of a home kitchen
- Ohio Wheat Growers · Farmers Markets · cheap eating
Eating it
Gluten-free baking, coeliac disease, and the fibre argument for whole grain all belong here rather than on the method pages. See gluten, eating restriction, healthy eating, and nutrition and supplements.
Bread as a component: Grilled Cheese Sandwiches · Deep-Dish Pizza · sauces · cheese