Baking science
The processes underneath everything else, with what is settled separated from what is not.
Every concept here states its evidence tier and, separately, what is not settled about it. That second field is mandatory and “nothing material” is not an acceptable answer — a site that explains gluten and kitchen folklore in the same confident register has taught its readers nothing about how to weigh a claim.
Gluten development
The formation of an elastic protein network from wheat’s glutenin and gliadin when flour is hydrated and worked.
ProteinsEstablished scienceStarch gelatinisation
The irreversible swelling and disruption of starch granules when heated with enough water, which is what sets a baked crumb.
StarchesEstablished scienceMaillard reaction
A family of reactions between reducing sugars and amino groups that generates most of a crust’s colour and savoury complexity.
SugarsEstablished scienceFermentation
The metabolism of sugars by yeast and bacteria into carbon dioxide, alcohol, acids and a large share of bread’s flavour.
MicrobiologyEstablished scienceLeavening
The four distinct routes by which gas gets into a bake, and the fact that all of them expand existing cells rather than creating new ones.
Gas and leaveningProfessional consensusProtein coagulation
The irreversible setting of egg and gluten proteins on heating, which is what stops a rising bake from rising further.
ProteinsEstablished scienceStarch retrogradation and staling
The gradual re-ordering of gelatinised starch as a bake cools and ages, which is what staling mostly is.
Staling and shelf lifeEstablished scienceMoisture migration
Water moving within a bake and out of it — the second staling mechanism, and the one that explains why a crust softens while the crumb firms.
Staling and shelf lifeProfessional consensusStructure without gluten
Gluten does four separable jobs. A gluten-free bake has to rebuild each of them from different materials, and which one is missing decides what went wrong.
ProteinsEstablished scienceHydrocolloids and viscosity
How gums and soluble fibres take up water, build viscosity and hold gas — and why each of them does it differently enough that they are not interchangeable.
Water and hydrationEstablished scienceMechanical dough development
Building a gluten network with energy instead of time — the principle behind the Chorleywood Bread Process and most of the bread sold in Britain.
ProteinsProfessional consensusHeat transfer in an oven
Four mechanisms act at once and they are not interchangeable — which is why the same setting bakes differently on a different shelf, in a different tin, in a different oven.
Heat and transferEstablished scienceWhat makes a flour strong
Protein percentage is the number on the packet and it is not the whole answer — composition, milling and damaged starch all move the result.
ProteinsEstablished scienceFat plasticity and crystal structure
Why the same fat behaves differently at different temperatures, and why what a fat can do is a property of its state rather than of its name.
FatsEstablished science