Magic of Making - A Loaf of Bread

This is wheat. One of the world's most important foodstuffs. It's about to take a journey that will lead it, willing or not, to the baker's oven. The kernels have been ripening under the summer sun, and now they're ready to be cut by this giant lawnmower of a machine known as a combine harvester. It beats the stalks it's gathered, separating the grain from the straw. The straw is left behind for animal food, and the grain is delivered to the hopper. This is a traditional water-powered affair, though some old mills use wind or even animals to turn the cogs. The wheat grains drop into the heart of the mill, made of two great stones, one grinding against the other, and the result is flour. This flour is called wholemeal, and will make fine brown bread, because the wheat grains were ground with the dark husk still on. The husk is like a shell to the grain. It's papery thin, like this sack, and made from fibre. Now if you want to make white bread, you have to remove the husk before grinding, and then you end up with flour like this. Add a little salt, fat, and yeast, and a few buckets of water. Yeast is amazing stuff. For one thing, it's alive. It's nourished by all the other ingredients, particularly if they're warm, and as it eats them, it produces a gas, like people who burp. After 20 minutes of mixing, we end up with a soft gooey stuff that make as cool dough. Make sure you have the right amount, putting aside any left over for later. Bakers use a machine called a divider to help them split the dough into equal portions. The most important part of bread making is a process called kneading. Kneading is when the dough is rolled and pummeled for the best part of 15 minutes. This develops long stringy molecules of gluten that hold back the yeast gas by trapping it as bubbles within the mixture. Next, take the dough to the prover room where it's kept nice and warm to encourage the yeast to grow. Leave the dough for 40 minutes while the living yeast makes little bubbles of gas that'll puff the bread up. A little decorative work using a baker's knife, and finally it's off for a 35 minute session in the baking hot oven, where the crust is hardened up and will take on that lovely browned look. Using a pallet on a very long stick, the baker takes the bread from the oven carefully so as not to burn himself. And there we have it, beautiful golden bread. Delicious!