Bakery and Baking Products, Biscuits, Cakes, Pies, Pastries, Cookies, Breads, Baking Powder, Rusk, Buns, Toasts, Cheese Cake, Lecithin, Eggless Cake and Desserts

A bakery refers to a kind of establishment that produces as well as sells flour based food baked in an oven such as cakes, bread, cookies, pastries as well as pies. Some of the retail bakeries selling baked products are called cafes serving tea and coffee. Various kinds of confectionary items are also made in bakeries across the globe. 

Bakeries provide services for occasions such as business networking events, parties, weddings, anniversaries and many other different kinds of events. A reputed bakery also produces baked products for people who have some kind of allergy or sensitivity to certain foods such as peanuts, gluten, nuts and others. A well known bakery also provides cake designs such as wedding cakes, layer cakes, sheet cakes, and others. Traditional bakeries, on the other hand, are known to make hand-made types of baked products. 

Various types of products are made in a bakery such as bread, bread roll, flatbreads, bagels, crumpets, pies, tarts, brownies, cakes, croissants, cupcakes, pastries, buns, muffins, doughnuts, biscuits, crackers, pita bread, pumpkin bread, potato bread, and others. A bakery sells all these products on commercialization. 

A bakery prepares food that uses dry heat of an oven. The most common baked item by a bakery is bread but many other types of food (like those mentioned above) are also baked in it. It is to be understood that heat is gradually transferred from the surface of breads, cakes and cookies to the center. When heat travels through, it transforms doughs and batters into baked goods. When baking is combined with grilling, it produces a kind of a hybrid barbecue variant. 

Baking is done by women at home for their day to day meals and by men in restaurants and bakeries for local consumption. When the art of baking was industrialized, automated machines were used for baking in large factories. The art of baking is still considered to be a fundamental skill and is important for nutrition (from cultural as well as economic point of view). When a person professionally prepares food, he is called a baker. On the other hand, a pastry chef prepares pastries, bread, deserts as well as other baked goods. 

When baking is undertaken, it needs an enclosed space for heating which is like that in an oven. The fuel in this case is supplied by gas, electricity, wood and coal. The commercial ovens used in a bakery are much equipped with heating elements  - one for convection and the other for thermal conduction. The culture in Asia is such that they have adopted steam baskets to produce the effect of baking while reducing the needed amount of fat. 

The process of baking involves 11 elements and these are listed below: 

- Melting of fat

- Expansion of gases

- Micro-organisms die

- Sugar dissolves

- Coagulation of egg, milk and gluten proteins

- Solidification of starch

- Liquids evaporate

- Caramelization and browning of crust

- Denaturing of enzymes

- Nutrient changes

- Breakdown of pectin. 

Thus, we have successfully been able to study much about bakery and baking products.