- This article refers to the cooking profession. For other uses, see Baker (disambiguation)
A baker is someone who primarily bakes and sells bread. Baking is the technique of prolonged Cooking of Food by dry heat acting by conduction, and not by radiation, normally in an Oven, Bread is a Staple food prepared by Baking a Dough of Flour and Water. Cakes and similar foods may also be produced, as the traditional boundaries between what is produced by a baker as opposed to a pastry chef have blurred in recent decades. Cake is a form of Food that is usually sweet and often baked. A pastry chef or pâtissier is a station Chef in a professional Kitchen, skilled in the making of pastries, Desserts and other The place where a baker works is called a bakehouse, bakeshop, or bakery. A bakery (also called baker's or bakehouse) is an establishment which produces or/and sells Bread, pies pastries Cakes Biscuits
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History of baking
Egyptians
The first group of people to bake bread were ancient Egyptians, in 2600-2100 BC. It was believed that they learnt their skills from the Babylonians. Babylonia was an Amorite state in lower Mesopotamia (modern southern Iraq) with Babylon as its capital In the royal bakery of Ramesses, bread and cakes were often made in shapes of animals and used for sacrifices.
The Roman Empire
The Greek culture influenced the Romans a lot after the Egyptians. The Culture of Greece has evolved over thousands of years with its beginnings in the Mycenaean and Minoan Civilizations, continuing most notably into Classical Greece From there, Bakery was transformed and flourished. The Romans were lusty and festive, soon the art of Bakering were a highly respected profession during the fourth century (A.D). The 'job' was so profitable that in the time of Christ there were about three hundred Bakers around Rome. Christ is the English term for the Greek ( Khristós) meaning "the anointed "
Europe
From the Roman Empire, the art of Bakery spread throughout Europe and the rest of the world.
During the Middle ages, it was common for each landlord to have a bakery, which was actually more of a public oven. Housewives would bring dough that they had prepared to the baker, who would use the oven to bake it into bread. As time went on, bakers began to bake their own goods, creating numerous tricks. For example, some bakers had trap doors that would allow a small boy to pinch off a bit of the dough to later sell off as his own. This practice eventually led in England to a regulation known as the Assize of Bread and Ale, which provided harsh punishments for bakers who were caught cheating. The Assize of Bread and Ale (Assisa panis et cervisiæ was a 13th-century Statute ( Assize) in late medieval English law that set standards of In response, bakers commonly threw in an extra loaf of bread; this tradition lives on in the modern "baker's dozen". A baker's dozen, also known as a long dozen and a "long measure" is 13, one more than a proper Dozen.
Modern bakers
Today bakers work in varying environments both as employees and sometimes owning their own stores. Bakers can be found working in:
- Large factories. These produce bread and related products which are then transported to numerous selling points throughout a region. These normally include supermarkets, convenience stores, and the like. Customer divider barjpg|thumb|In supermarkets sellers periodically change prices for classes of goods in response to market conditions rather than negotiating the price of each good A convenience store is a small store or shop. They are often located alongside busy roads or at gas/petrol stations. Bakers in these environments are largely there for quality control as machines take care of much of the labour intensive aspect of the job.
- Small Independent bakeries. These are largely family-run businesses. They may specialise in particular types of products, such as sourdough. Sourdough (or more formally natural leaven or Levain) refers to the process of leavening Bread by capturing wild Yeasts
- Chain stores. Recent years have seen the rise of chain stores (supermarkets) selling the same range of products. Bakers in these stores bake according to a pre-determined recipe book. This can lead to frustration as some bakers do not agree with techniques used by the franchising model. Franchising refers to the methods of practicing and using another person's Philosophy of business. However, the recipes used tend to be well-founded, and popular with the paying public.
See also
External links
A pastry chef or pâtissier is a station Chef in a professional Kitchen, skilled in the making of pastries, Desserts and other Dough is a paste made out of any Cereals (grains or leguminous crops by mixing the Flour with a small amount of Water. For kneading of clay see wedging Kneading is a process in the making of Bread, used to mix together the ingredients and add strength Baker percentage, sometimes called formula percentage, is a way of indicating the proportion of ingredients when making Bread.Dictionary
baker
-noun
Baker
-proper noun
- An occupational surname for a baker, or owner of a communal oven
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