Parbaking is a

cooking Cooking, also known as cookery or professionally as the culinary arts, is the art, science and craft of using heat to make food more palatable, digestible, nutritious, or Food safety, safe. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely, from ...

technique in which a

bread Bread is a baked food product made from water, flour, and often yeast. It is a staple food across the world, particularly in Europe and the Middle East. Throughout recorded history and around the world, it has been an important part of many cu ...

dough Dough is a malleable, sometimes elastic paste made from flour (which itself is made from grains or from leguminous or chestnut crops). Dough is typically made by mixing flour with a small amount of water or other liquid and sometimes includes ...

product is partially baked and then rapidly frozen for storage or assembled into a final product. It has been used to increase the mass manufacture and distribution of bread products, including bagels. When parbaking is used to bake bread, it increases the shelf life of the loaf. The raw dough is baked normally, but halted at about 80% of the normal cooking time, when it is rapidly cooled and frozen. Partial cooking kills the

yeast Yeasts are eukaryotic, single-celled microorganisms classified as members of the fungus kingdom (biology), kingdom. The first yeast originated hundreds of millions of years ago, and at least 1,500 species are currently recognized. They are est ...

in the bread mixture, and sets the internal structure of the

protein Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residue (biochemistry), residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including Enzyme catalysis, catalysing metab ...

s and

starch Starch or amylum is a polymeric carbohydrate consisting of numerous glucose units joined by glycosidic bonds. This polysaccharide is produced by most green plants for energy storage. Worldwide, it is the most common carbohydrate in human diet ...

es (the spongy texture of the bread) so that the inside is sterile and stable, but the loaf has not generated "crust" or other externally desirable qualities that are difficult to preserve once fully cooked. A parbaked loaf of bread is less likely to go stale than a fully baked loaf. It can be transported easily and stored in containers preventing moisture loss until needed. They can also be frozen. A parbaked loaf appears as a risen loaf of bread, with much of the firmness of a finished loaf, but without a browned or golden crust (in the case of a normally light colored bread). When the final product is desired, a parbaked loaf is completed by baking at a normal temperature, which produces a normal loaf of bread. Parbaking, also known as

blind baking Baking blind (sometimes called pre-baking) is the process of baking a pie crust or other pastry Pastry refers to a variety of Dough, doughs (often enriched with fat or eggs), as well as the sweet and savoury Baking, baked goods made from th ...

, is used for pastry crusts, as in

pie A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts ( pecan pie), fruit preserves ( jam tart ...

s and

quiche Quiche ( ) is a French tart consisting of a pastry crust filled with savoury custard and pieces of cheese, meat, seafood or vegetables. A well-known variant is quiche lorraine, which includes lardons or bacon. Quiche may be served hot, wa ...

s to prevent sogginess. It is also used to manipulate the taste of

pizza Pizza is an Italian cuisine, Italian, specifically Neapolitan cuisine, Neapolitan, dish typically consisting of a flat base of Leavening agent, leavened wheat-based dough topped with tomato, cheese, and other ingredients, baked at a high t ...

crusts through its effect on the yeast content of the dough. Parbaking has been criticized by

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

historian of bread Steven Kaplan for its impact on traditional bread baking practices.

References

External links

Impact of parbaking on storage life
visualized here

and published also here
United States patent for parbaking pizza crust"Baking Business"
discussion on the economics and techniques of parbaking

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The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

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''Indy Week'', "Shooting at Par"
{{Cooking techniques Baking Cooking techniques Culinary terminology

See also

References

External links