Bake like an Egyptian...

Bread has been an important staple food product to many cultures over the centuries - indeed, it is referred to as "the staff of life" in the Bible. Modern breadmaking techniques date back as far as 3000 BC and the ancient Egyptians. As well as using grinding stones and advanced baking chambers, the Egyptians were already baking with different grains to create a wide variety of textures and flavours.

Wheat, the most common grain in Egypt, made a superior bread and became very popular. The Egyptians also experimented with different ingredients, such as honey, eggs, dates, seeds and spices, which were used to make breads more interesting and tasty. Different shaped loaves were made for everyday eating, rituals and festivals.

When in Rome...

After the Egyptians, breadmaking techniques remained fairly inconsistent. However, by 50 BC, bread baking knowledge had spread to the Greeks and Romans, as well as to the Saxons. The Romans were the first to perfect rotary mills and by the time of Christ more than 250 Roman bakeries were producing a total of half a million loaves per day. As with most things Roman, their breadmaking was highly sophisticated. They used sieves to produce finer flour and invented two types of oven - 'brick' and the 'three-legged pot'. They also introduced the world to the cottage loaf!

Vikings and Normans

When the Romans left Britain, the quality of bread dropped dramatically as people reverted back to older, less sophisticated breadmaking processes. The Vikings brought rye from Scandinavia and produced hard, primitive-looking flat bread which had large holes in the middle.

To the Normans, breadmaking was very much an organised, community activity. Crop rotation was introduced and watermills and windmills were constructed close to fields to facilitate flour production. As towns grew, breadmaking became more regulated. Baking guilds were established and in 1266 the first bread control agency, the 'Assize of Bread', was set up to govern the weight and price of bread.

The rise of the sandwich

The 18th century saw the birth of the loaf tin which enabled bread to be easily sliced. However, according to history, it is not the humble loaf tin we have to thank for our great British institution, but the Fourth Earl of Sandwich. Too busy to have a cooked meal during a gambling session, he ordered his staff to prepare him cold meat between two slices of bread - and so the first sandwich was born.

Industrialisation

The industrial revolution was the next great milestone in the history of breadmaking. Steam-powered mills were constructed to meet the bread demands of a growing population. In 1815, the Corn Laws prevented the importation of foreign wheat but were revoked in 1846 to keep England from famine.

By the late 19th century, steel roller mills arrived, producing a softer and finer flour which produced a better quality bread. Gas ovens replaced wooden and coal-burning brick ovens and 'barm' (a mixture of potato, malt, honey and wild yeasts) was used as a raising agent.

Raising bread the Hovis^® way

It was at this time that Richard 'Stoney' Smith invented a bread called 'Smith's Patent Germ Bread' which was to revolutionise breadmaking. Smith, by perfecting a method of steam cooking, invented a genuinely new brown flour rich in vitamins and nutrients. After a nation-wide competition, Smith's bread was renamed Hovis^® - taken from the latin phrase 'hominis vis' which means 'strength of man'. Its success was overwhelming. By 1895, Hovis^® sales had reached 1 million loaves per week.

Breadmaking today

The last century has seen the concentration of the UK flour milling industry - now one of Europe's most efficient. New technology, which incorporates the roller milling process, has enabled major increases in productivity and improved varieties of UK wheat has meant that millers are now using more home produced grain.

Breadmaking at home has become less popular during the last 100 years or so as a result of the introduction of the convenient, pre-packed, sliced loaf.