Bread types and bread baking 
BREAD
Bread is a staple food prepared by cooking a dough of flour and water and often, additional ingredients. Doughs are usually baked, but in some cuisines breads are steamed, fried, or baked on an unoiled skillet. It may be leavened or unleavened. Salt, fat and leavening agents such as yeast and baking soda are common ingredients, though bread may contain other ingredients, such as milk, egg, sugar, spice, fruit (such as raisins), vegetables (such as onion), nuts (such as walnuts) or seeds (such as poppy). Bread is one of the oldest prepared foods, dating back to the Neolithic era, and is referred to colloquially as the "staff of life". The development of leavened bread can probably also be traced to prehistoric times.
Fresh bread is prized for its taste, aroma, quality, appearance and texture. Retaining its freshness is important to keep it appetizing. Bread that has stiffened or dried past its prime is said to be stale. Modern bread is sometimes wrapped in paper or plastic film, or stored in a container such as a breadbox to reduce drying. Bread that is kept in warm, moist environments is prone to the growth of mold. Bread kept at low temperatures, in a refrigerator for example, will develop mold growth more slowly than bread kept at room temperature, but will turn stale quickly due to retrogradation.
The soft, inner part of bread is known to bakers and other culinary professionals as the crumb, which is not to be confused with small bits of bread that often fall off, called crumbs. The outer hard portion of bread is called the crust.
Etymology
The word itself, Old English bread, is common in various forms to many Germanic languages; such as Frisian brea, Dutch brood, German Brot, Swedish bröd, Norwegian and Danish brød; it has been claimed to be derived from the root of brew. It may be connected with the root of break, for its early uses are confined to broken pieces, or bits of bread, the Latin crustum, and it was not until the 12th century that it took the place as the generic name for bread of hlaf ([hlaifs] in Gothic: modern English loaf), which appears to be the oldest Teutonic name. Old High German hleib and modern German Laib, Polish chleb, Russian khleb all derive from the Indo-European word for "loaf". The Finnish leipä and Estonian leib, though not Indo-European, borrowed from the same root.
History
Bread is one of the oldest prepared foods. Evidence from 30,000 years ago in Europe revealed starch residue on rocks used for pounding plants. It is possible that during this time, starch extract from the roots of plants, such as cattails and ferns, was spread on a flat rock, placed over a fire and cooked into a primitive form of flatbread. Around 10,000 BC, with the dawn of the Neolithic age and the spread of agriculture, grains became the mainstay of making bread. Yeast spores are ubiquitous, including the surface of cereal grains, so any dough left to rest will become naturally leavened. There were multiple sources of leavening available for early bread. Airborne yeasts could be harnessed by leaving uncooked dough exposed to air for some time before cooking. Pliny the Elder reported that the Gauls and Iberians used the foam skimmed from beer to produce
Cultural and Political Importance of Bread
As a foodstuff of great historical and contemporary importance, in many cultures in the West and Near and Middle East bread has a significance beyond mere nutrition. The Lord's Prayer, for example, contains the line "Give us this day our daily bread"; here, "bread" is commonly understood to mean necessities in general. Bread is also significant in Christianity as one of the elements (alongside wine) of the Eucharist; see sacramental bread. The word companion comes from Latin com- "with" + panis "bread". The Roman poet Juvenal satirised superficial politicians and the public as caring only for "panem et circenses" (bread and circuses). In Israel the most usual phrase in work related demonstrations is "lekhem, avoda" [bread, work], and during the 1950s, the beatnik community used the term bread as a euphemism for money. In Cockney Rhyming Slang, bread means money and is derived from the phrase bread and honey. The word bread is now commonly used around the world in English speaking countries as a synonym for money.
Types
Bread is the staple food in Europe, European-derived cultures such as the Americas, and the Middle East/North Africa, as opposed to East Asia whose staple is rice. Bread is usually made from a wheat-flour dough that is cultured with yeast, allowed to rise, and finally baked in an oven. Owing to its high levels of gluten (which give the dough sponginess and elasticity), common wheat (also known as bread wheat) is the most common grain used for the preparation of bread, but bread is also made from the flour of other wheat species (including durum, spelt and emmer), rye, barley, maize (or corn), and oats, usually, but not always, in combination with wheat flour. Spelt bread (Dinkelbrot) continues to be widely consumed in Germany, and emmer bread was a staple food in ancient Egypt.
• White bread is made from flour containing only the central core of the grain (endosperm).
• Brown bread is made with endosperm and 10% bran. It can also refer to white bread with added colouring (often caramel colouring) to make it 'brown'; commonly labeled in America as
• "Wheat" bread (as opposed to "Whole Wheat" bread).
• Wholemeal bread contains the whole of the wheat grain (endosperm and bran). It is also referred to as 'whole grain' or 'whole wheat' bread, especially in North America.
• Wheat germ bread has added wheat germ for flavoring.
Whole grain bread can refer to the same as 'wholemeal bread', or to white bread with added whole grains to increase its fibre content, i.e., as in "60% whole grain bread".
• Roti is a whole wheat based bread eaten in South Asia. Chapatti is a larger variant of Roti. Naan is a leavened equivalent to these.
• Granary bread is made from flaked malted wheat grains and white or brown flour, and trademarked to Hovis. The standard malting process is modified to maximise maltose / sugar content but minimise residual alpha amylase content. Other flavour components are imparted from partial fermentation due to the particular malting process used and to Maillard reactions on flaking / toasting.
• Rye bread is made with flour from rye grain of varying levels. It is higher in fiber than many common types of bread and is often darker in color and stronger in flavor. It is popular in Scandinavia, Germany, Finland, the Baltic States, and Russia.
•Unleavened Bread or Matzah used for the Jewish.
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