The origin of baking, as of most arts of primary importance, precedes the period of history, and is involved in the obscurity of the early ages of the human race. Excavations conducted on the site of some of the numerous lake dwellings of Switzerland have resulted in the discovery of abundant evidence that the art of making bread was practised by our prehistoric ancestors as early as the Stone Period. Not only have stones for grinding meal and baking bread been discovered, but bread itself in large quantities has been disinterred, preserved by being carbonised in the fires which frequently destroyed the pile-dwellings of the primitive inhabitants of the world. At Robenhausen, Meisskomer discovered 8 lb of bread, a weight which would correspond with about 40 lb of newly-baked bread. At Wangen there has been discovered “actual baked bread or cake made of the crushed corn, precisely similar to that found about the same time by Mr Meisskomer at Robenhausen. Of course, it has been burned or charred, and thus these interesting specimens have been preserved to the present day. The form of these cakes is somewhat round, and about an inch to an inch and a half in diameter. The dough did not consist of meal, but of grains of corn more or less crushed. In some specimens the halves of grains of barley are plainly discernible. The under side of these cakes is sometimes flat, sometimes concave, and there appears no doubt that the mass of dough was baked by being laid on hot stones and covered over with glowing ashes.”—(Keller’s Lake Dwellings, Lee’s Translation, p. 63.)

The very early mention of bread in written history further bears out the great antiquity of the art of baking. Bread is first specifically mentioned in Genesis xviii. 5, when Abraham, wishing to entertain the three angels on the plains of Mamre, offered to “fetch a morsel of bread;” and the operation of baking is immediately thereafter alluded to in the instructions to Sarah to “make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth.” At the same time, when, in the city of Sodom, Lot entertained two angels, “he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat” (Genesis xix. 3). It may be inferred from the mention of unleavened bread that, in those patriarchal times, the two great classes of bread were known and used. At a period little later the art of baking was carried to high perfection in Egypt, which then took the lead in the arts of civilised life. The Egyptians baked cakes and loaves of many varieties and shapes, in which they employed several kinds of flour, and they flavoured their bread with various aromatic ingredients. The chief baker of Pharaoh, who was in prison along with Joseph, doubtless pursued his craft in its essential features in the same way as bakers do at the present day.

From ancient Egypt excellence in the art of baking travelled with the march of civilisation into Greece, and the allusions to bread in the works of classic authors are very numerous. In The Deipnosophists of Athenaeus mention is made of no less than sixty-two varieties of bread as known among the ancient Greeks, and minute descriptions of many of them are given. We learn from Pliny (Nat. Hist., xviii. 28) that professional bakers were first introduced into Rome at the close of the war with Perseus, king of Macedon. By the practical Romans the baking trade was formed into a kind of incorporation or guild, with special privileges and immunities attached to the calling. Public bakeries were distributed throughout the city, to which slaves were assigned for performing the heavier and more disagreeable tasks connected with the occupation. Grain was delivered into public granaries by enrolled Saccarii, and it was distributed to the bakers by a corporation called the Catabolenses. No separate mills for grinding corn then existed, the grain being pounded and sifted in the bakeries, and hence the Roman bakers were known as Pistores. A special magistrate was appointed to take cognisance of every matter connected with the management of public bakeries.

The calling of the baker during the Middle Ages was considered to be one so closely affecting the interests of the public that it was put under strict regulation and supervision, and these special restrictions continued to affect the trade down to very recent times. In England, an Act of Parliament was passed in 1266 for regulating the price of bread by a public assize, and that system continued in operation till 1822 in the case of the city of London, and till 1836 for the rest of the country. The price of bread was determined by adding a certain sum to the price of every quarter of flour, in name of the baker’s expenses and profit; and for the sum so arrived at tradesmen were required to bake and sell eighty quartern loaves, or a like proportion of other sizes, which it was reckoned each quarter of flour ought to yield. The following table exhibits the assize price of bread in London in 1814:—- [table]

The art of making bread made its way northwards very slowly; and even at present, in the northern countries of Europe and Asia, loaves of bread are seldom used except by the higher classes of inhabitants. In Sweden, for example, rolls are frequently seen in the towns, but loaves rarely. Towards the end of 1812 the captain of an English packet ordered a Gothenburg baker to bake for him a quantity of bread, to the value of .£1 sterling. The baker was confounded at so large an order, and refused to comply till the captain gave him security that he would carry off and pay for the loaves, declaring that he could never dispose of so great a quantity of bread in Gothenburg if it were left upon his hands. In the country part of Sweden no bread is made but rye-cakes, nearly as hard as flint, which are only baked twice a year. About a century ago loaf-bread was almost as rare in the rural districts of Scotland, barley bannocks and oaten cakes then constituting the universal substitutes among almost all ranks. In many parts of England it is the custom for private families to bake their own bread. This is particularly the case in Kent, and in some parts of Lancashire. In the year 1804 the town of Manchester, with a population of 90,000 persons, did not contain a single public baker. Bakers in Great Britain are now placed under the provisions of “The Bakehouses’ Regulation Act, 1863” (26 and 27 Vict. cap. 40), a statute passed after a searching inquiry into the condition of bakehouses in London and of the persons employed in them. By this Act no young person under the age of 18 is permitted to work in a bakehouse between the hours of 9 p.m. and 5 a.m., and special enactments provide for securing the cleanliness and ventilation of bakehouses, and for the regulation of sleeping apartments connected with them.

As compared with wheat-flour all other materials used for making bread are of comparative insignificance. Oat cakes still form a staple article of food in many rural districts of Scotland, and are occasionally used in other countries. They are made by mixing up oatmeal, warm water, and salt, sometimes with the addition of butter or fat, into a very stiff paste, and kneading this out into a thin cake, which is first fired on a hot plate or “girdle,” and finished in front of an open fire. Scones of barley-flour, sweet and tough, were formerly largely used in Scotland, but have now given place to a similar preparation of wheaten flour. Rye bread, both fermented and unfermented, is largely consumed by the inhabitants of the northern parts of Europe in the poor and backward districts. Cakes of maize meal, baked like oat cakes, are consumed in some parts of the United States. The meal of various species of millet is used in Southern Europe to form bread; and in India and China, durra (Sorghum, vulgare) and other cereal grains are baked for food. Of non-cereal flours, the principal used for bread-making is buckwheat. Fagopyrum esculentum, extensively employed in Russia and Holland^ The flour of pease, beans, and other leguminous seeds, are also baked into cakes; and cassava cakes are made from the meal of the tapioca plant, Jatroplιa Manihot, in South America. Excepting rye, none of these substances is used for making vesiculated or fermented bread.

The grain of wheat consists of an outer husk or covering, an embryo or germ, and a central mass of farinaceous material. The outer husk is composed of several distinct layers of ligneous tissue, closely adhering to the seed, and very hard in texture. In grinding, this is detached in scales, and constitutes the chief proportion of the bran. The inner portion of the envelope is softer, and contains an active nitrogenous principle, termed cerealin, and is besides rich in fat and salts. This portion goes with the pollard or parings in the dressing of wheat flour. Towards the centre of the grain the substance becomes whiter in colour and more friable in texture, so that, in grinding, the finest flour in consistence is always the whitest in appearance. By agriculturists several hundred varieties of wheat and a number of distinct species are recognised; but in commerce the grain is distinguished as white and red, or as hard and soft wheats. There is a considerable range of difference in the proportions of their proximate constituents, hard wheats as a rule being much more nitrogenous than the soft varieties; and similarly, wheats grown in hot climates are also usually richest in nitrogen. The following analyses of two typical varieties of wheat are taken from Payen’s tables, water being neglected :— [table]

When wheat is ground it is sifted or dressed into a series of mill products, ranging from fine flour to bran, according to the size of the ground particles. The divisions vary in different mills and localities; but the accompanying table —the result of an elaborate series of experiments by Messrs Lawes and Gilbert—may be regarded as a standard of the relative proportions of mill products :— [table]

The tails and fine sharps are generally passed through the mill a second time, bringing up the yield of flour to about 80 per cent, of the entire grain. As an example of mill products in practice, the following table is copied from the actual mill receipts of a Scotch miller. The quantity dealt with represents 16 quarters of wheat, weighing 63f lb per bushel, in all 578 st. lift. The yield was— [table]

The composition of flour and bran given in the understated table is the mean result of a series of fourteen analyses by Peligot :— [table]

It is a disputed point whether dextrin or sugar exists in flour of the best quality; but the action of heat and moisture in the baking process quickly transforms a portion of the starch into the soluble condition. In flour of inferior quality a large percentage of dextrin is usually found—a circumstance very detrimental to its bread-making qualities. A table of the percentage of gluten, obtained by Messrs Lawes and Gilbert from a large number of flours, shows a variation from 8'9 to 14'9 per cent. This gluten itself (tbe insoluble nitrogenous substance in flour) is a compound body, composed of three or four distinct substances; but its physical conditions of elasticity, tenacity, and colour are'of much greater importance to the baker than either its chemical constitution or its amount.

The varieties of wheaten bread are divisible into two great classes— Unvesiculated and Vesiculated Bread. Under the first head are included such products of the art as are fired or baked without first being raised or rendered spongy by the development of carbonic acid gas within the mass, either by fermentation or otherwise. Vesiculated bread is produced when carbonic acid is either developed in or introduced into the dough, so as to permeate the mass with an infinite number of minute cavities, which render the product light and spongiform.

Unvesiculated Bread. —The simplest form of bread, and the rudest baking, are seen in the Australian “Damper,” a cake made from dough composed of flour, salt, and water, baked in the dying embers of a wood fire. The dough is laid on a flat stone, covered with a tin plate, and the hot ashes heaped around and over it, care being taken not to expose it to a heat of more than 212° Fahr. Passover cakes, scones, and “bannocks” are prepared from a similar dough, and fired on hot plates or in ovens, and form an agreeable and nutritious food. When such dough is exposed to a high heat, so that the resulting cake is hard, dry, and resonant, biscuits (δι⅛ cuit, twice baked) are formed.

Biscuit Manufacture.— Biscuit making is a branch of trade distinct from ordinary baking, conducted under different conditions, and requiring machinery and processes peculiar to itself. Biscuits are made by a rapid and continuous process; they can be preserved a long time, and in proportion to their price they occupy little space, so that it is practicable to sell them in markets remote from the place of manufacture. The manufacture of biscuits is now conducted on a very large scale, ingenious and complicated machinery is employed in the various processes, and a large export trade in biscuits has grown up. The firm of Messrs Carr & Co., of Carlisle, was the first to originate the manufacture, and that firm still possesses one of the largest and best-appointed establishments. To the partners of this firm we are indebted for much information as to the processes employed in this modern industry.

The general arrangements of a ship-biscuit factory arc shown in the sectional view, fig. 1. The flour stored on the upper floor is passed down through a shoot to the flour-room, where it is sifted to free it from knots or lumps. In the making of plain water or ship biscuits, the flour is shot directly down into the mixer a, on the ground floor, in quantities usually of one bag at a time, to which the requisite quantity of water, regulated by a gauge-glass, is added. The mixer is a cylindrical vessel of cast-iron, in which a series of knives or arms is kept revolving on a central axis, The revolution of these knives is sufficient to incorporate the flour and water thoroughly into a very stiff dough in about seven minutes. From the mixer the dough is delivered on a table in large amorphous masses, and it is next carried forward to the brake machine δ. The brake consists . of two heavy iron rollers, having generally a reciprocating motion, between which the dough is passed backwards and forwards several times till it is rolled out into a plate or sheet of uniform thickness and consistency. The sheet of prepared dough is next carried forward to the cutting and panning machine c, a highly complex and ingenious apparatus, the principle of which is shown in fig. 2. In this machine the dough is first passed between a pair of gauge rollers a, graduated to secure a sheet of any desired uniform thickness, from which it is received on an endless sheet of felt b. On this web the sheet of dough is carried forward by intermittent motion to a punching apparatus c, in which moulds or cutting edges of the size and form of biscuit desired are arranged. Here the biscuits are cut out, the scrap being caught on a web d, and carried upward till it falls over in a box or trough on the table e, from which it is returned to the brake machine. The biscuits are carried down the web f, and fall into tin trays, which are fed in at g by a boy, and move forward at the same rate the biscuit web travels, so that they are ready for being immediately placed on the travelling stage of the patent oven. The processes are so arranged that the oven carries forward the biscuits as quickly as they are delivered by the cutting machine, and in some cases the ovens are fed direct from the cutting and panning apparatus by automatic machinery. The patent travelling ovens are constructed from 30 to 44 feet long, and fitted with endless webs either of plates or chains. The chain webs are used for baking small and fancy biscuits, such as are placed in trays, and the plates are used for large and plain water biscuits, which are placed by hand on the travelling plates. The rates at which biscuits of different sizes and degrees of richness must traverse the whole length of the oven varies from about five to forty minutes, and the temperature of the oven has also to be modified to suit the various qualities. Both the heat and rate of motion are under easy and adequate control in the patent ovens.

There is an endless variety in the form and composition of plain and fancy biscuits. In the trade list of Messrs Vicars, of Liverpool, the chief manufacturers of biscuit machinery, the names of 128 varieties of cutters are mentioned. In the making of fancy biscuits, milk, eggs, sugar, butter or lard, and flavouring essences are extensively used, and in these cases the proportions of the various ingredients are roughly mingled before being sent down the shoot into the mixer. The richest class of biscuits, the dough for which is necessarily soft, are cut out by hand labour, and fired on trays in common ovens. The dough for rout biscuits is placed in a strong metal box or chamber in which a piston is tightly fitted. The piston is moved forward by a screw, and it pushes the dough through a series of holes or dies. The dough is received on a sliding board, and is cut into proper lengths by a knife. Cracknels are made without either milk or water being used to mix the dough, eggs alone being employed for this purpose. Certain proportions of butter, sugar, and sesquicarbonate of ammonia are added to the mixture of flour and eggs, and the dough is baked in the usual way. The cracknels, when cut out, are thrown into a boiler of boiling water, and in about two minutes they float to the top. They arc then fished out and thrown into cold water, and then drained on cloths, panned, and fired in an ordinary oven at a high heat. In the firing, the ammonic carbonate, being very volatile, is driven off, and the cracknel thus assumes its spongy structure. Many other varieties of biscuits are rendered light and spongiform by the use of the sesquicarbonate of ammonia, or of carbonate of soda, in conjunction with sour milk. In the firing of biscuits, not only the moisture of the dough is driven off, but a certain proportion of the water held by the flour in its apparently dry state, so that from 10 lb of flour only about 9 fi> of water biscuits are obtained. The composition of plain biscuit is given by Dr Parkes as follows :— [table]

Vesiculated Bread. —Under this head is included such bread as is rendered spongiform in structure by the action of carbonic acid within the dough, and which is not baked hard and dry as in the case of biscuits. It includes ordinary loaf bread, pan loaves, French or Paris loaves, cottage loaves, bricks, rolls, buns, and many varieties of fancy bread distinguished by local names and minor differences of form and composition. Vesiculated bread is made in three different ways :—

Is#, By the development of carbonic acid within the dough through fermentation of the flour. This is the ordinary and principal method of bread-making.

2tZ, By mixing the dough with water previously aerated with carbonic acid. The aerated bread made under the patent of the late Dr Dauglish is thus manufactured.

3d, By the disengagement of carbonic acid from chemical agents introduced into the dough. Dodson’s patent unfermented bread comes under this head, and the “baking powders” and “yeast powders” extensively sold consist generally of carbonate of soda or ammonia and citric or tartaric acid, which evolve carbonic acid in presence of water.

Fermented Bread.— The manufacture of fermented or leavened...