Baking

The concept of baking food or baking as an industry is as old as human civilization. Baking is a thermal process that is carried out under high temperatures. Baking is the key unit operation in a bakery, wherein an intermediate dough or batter develops the desired product characteristics including volume, colour, texture and flavour. The product properties, such as specific heat, thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity and moisture diffusivity, are important to predict the temperature and moisture distribution in the product during the baking process. The application of the baking process to manufacture several bakery products, the role of ingredients and process, and the changes that take place during the baking of bread, biscuits and cakes are discussed in this chapter. Several machineries like the mixer, moulder, shaping system, baking oven, cooling system and size reduction unit are common in baking industries.