Breadmaking 101: What Is Bread Made of?

Bread has existed in one form or another since ancient times.

• Bread’s beginnings: People may have baked bread as early as 12,000 years ago in the Neolithic era by combining meal and water and heating the product on hot stones. These first breads were the ancestors of the kinds of flatbread still eaten around the world today, like the pita enjoyed throughout the Middle East.
• Egyptian innovation: The ancient Egyptians were responsible both for the first bread ovens—made from clay enclosing a wood fire—and for discovering that allowing dough to ferment before baking results in a lighter crumb and an airier loaf.
• Rise of the Romans: The Romans are credited with devising the technique for stone-grinding meal to create finer flour and a smoother eventual texture.
• The invention of white bread: During medieval times, bakers developed a new type of bread by separating wheat’s endosperm from its bran and germ to create white flour. White bread became a food for the wealthy, while poorer people still made whole grain loaves from whole wheat flour.
• Mechanization and mass production: The twentieth century saw the advent of mechanization and, with it, the mass production of bread. Along with these developments, bread manufacturers began adding preservatives to bread to increase its shelf life.
• The bread renaissance: In the 1980s, bakers returned to older ways of making good bread as artisanal foods became trendier. This is why it’s so easy to find varieties like whole wheat bread and rye bread today.

In its most basic form, bread is a hydrated meal bakers heat to form a solid loaf. Bakers typically define bread as some combination of a flour or meal, a leavening agent, water, and salt.

• Flour or meal: The flour or meal comprises the carbohydrate content of bread. While wheat flour is the most common base for breadmaking, you can also make bread from finely ground rye, corn, seeds, nuts, and pseudo-grains.
• Leavening agent: The leavening agent is what makes bread rise, often through the production of carbon dioxide—a byproduct of fermentation. In yeast breads, the fungus yeast (used either in its dried form or its wild form, as in the case of sourdough) consumes the carbohydrates in the bread dough and produces the carbon dioxide. Other breads get their structure from ingredients like baking soda, eggs, or flaxseed.
• Water: Water both hydrates the flour or meal and disperses ingredients throughout the dough.
• Salt: Salt doesn’t just serve as a seasoning in baking; it enhances the browning, flavors, and the texture of bread as well as to strengthen the gluten network within a loaf of bread.

These add-ins aren’t strictly necessary, but many breads include one or more of these optional ingredients.

1. 1. Oil or butter: Adding a fat—like vegetable oil, olive oil, or butter—to bread gives it a softer, moister texture and makes the dough easier to handle.
2. 2. Fruit: Many bread recipes incorporate fruit like raisins, cranberries, and orange to enhance the flavor.
3. 3. Nuts: Festive breads and loaves often include nuts like walnuts or pistachios for flavor, heft, and texture.
4. 4. Sweeteners: Adding a sweet element like honey to a loaf of bread can both lend the loaf its flavor as well as create a more moist texture.
5. 5. Spices and herbs: Practically any variety of spice or herb, from sweet, mild basil to a more assertive anise, can be incorporated into a loaf of bread.

Since bread is such a broad category with so many different types, the exact process of making bread varies wildly from recipe to recipe, but below is the process for basic homemade bread.

1. 1. Activate yeast if necessary. Instant yeast can be incorporated directly into the dough. Wild yeast (in the case of sourdough) is similarly ready to go as-is, but you need to combine active dry yeast with warm water before incorporating it into bread dough.
2. 2. Combine the water and dry ingredients in a large bowl. Typically, breadmakers incorporate the various ingredients of the loaf of bread until they reach a uniform consistency.
3. 3. Knead the dough. Kneading is the process by which a baker massages dough to develop its gluten content. Gluten is a general category for the amino acids in wheat and rye flour and is responsible for bread’s chewy texture. The gluten network lends an airy loaf of bread the strength to hold together.
4. 4. Let the dough proof. Bread is left to proof (or rest and rise) twice before it’s baked, either at room temperature or in a warmed proofing drawer. Rising time varies from bread to bread, but during the proofing process, the dough ferments, and air pockets form to inflate the loaf and form its eventual texture.
5. 5. Bake the bread. Finally, you’ll bake the loaf in a bread pan or on a baking sheet, solidifying its internal texture and yielding its external crust.

Here are just a few examples of how much you can do with bread.

1. 1. Brioche: Brioche is a French bread made with butter and eggs for a lovely texture and a rich flavor.
2. 2. Zucchini bread: Zucchini bread is surprisingly moist and flavorful considering that it gets much of its flavor from zucchini. Made with baking powder instead of yeast, it qualifies as a quick bread.
3. 3. Focaccia: A classic Italian bread, focaccia is an oily, chewy, delicious flatbread.
4. 4. Irish soda bread: Made with all-purpose flour rather than bread flour, Irish soda bread has a delicate texture and you can enhance with any number of mix-ins.
5. 5. Baguette: A true baking challenge, the classic baguette has a lovely crisp golden brown exterior crust and a delicious, chewy interior.

We’ve got you covered. All you knead (see what we did there?) is The MasterClass Annual Membership, some water, flour, salt, and yeast, and our exclusive lessons from Apollonia Poilâne—Paris’s premier bread maker and one of the earliest architects of the artisanal bread movement. Roll up your sleeves and get baking.