Baking in the context of "Oven"

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 cultures' diets. It is one of the oldest human-made foods, having been of significance since the dawn of agriculture, and plays an essential role in both religious rituals and secular culture.

Bread may be leavened by naturally occurring microbes (e.g. sourdough), chemicals (e.g. baking soda), industrially produced yeast, or high-pressure aeration, which creates the gas bubbles that fluff up bread. Bread may also be unleavened. In many countries, mass-produced bread often contains additives to improve flavor, texture, color, shelf life, nutrition, and ease of production.

Cooking, also known as cookery, is the art, science and craft of using heat to make food more palatable, digestible, nutritious, or safe. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely, from grilling food over an open fire, to using electric stoves, to baking in various types of ovens, to boiling and blanching in water, reflecting local conditions, techniques and traditions. Cooking is an aspect of all human societies and a cultural universal.

Types of cooking also depend on the skill levels and training of the cooks. Cooking is done both by people in their own dwellings and by professional cooks and chefs in restaurants and other food establishments. The term "culinary arts" usually refers to cooking that is primarily focused on the aesthetic beauty of the presentation and taste of the food.

A raisin is a dried grape. Raisins are produced in many regions of the world and may be eaten raw or used in cooking, baking, and brewing. In the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, the word raisin is reserved for the dark-colored dried large grape, with sultana being a golden- or green-colored dried grape, and currant being a dried small Black Corinth seedless grape.

Flour is a powder used to make many different foods, including baked goods, as well as thickening dishes. It is made by grinding grains, beans, nuts, seeds, roots, or vegetables using a mill.

Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many cultures. Archaeologists have found evidence of humans making cereal flour over 14,000 years ago. Other cereal flours include corn flour, which has been important in Mesoamerican cuisine since ancient times and remains a staple in the Americas, while rye flour is a constituent of bread in both Central Europe and Northern Europe. Cereal flour consists either of the endosperm, germ, and bran together, known as whole-grain flour, or of the endosperm alone, which is known as refined flour. 'Meal' is technically differentiable from flour as having slightly coarser particle size, known as degree of comminution. However, the word 'meal' is synonymous with 'flour' in some parts of the world. The processing of cereal flour to produce white flour, where the outer layers are removed, means nutrients are lost. Such flour, and the breads made from them, may be fortified by adding nutrients. As of 2016, it is a legal requirement in 86 countries to fortify wheat flour.

In cooking (and more specifically baking), kneading is a process in the making of bread or dough, used to mix the ingredients and add strength and stiffness to the final product. It shortens baking times by forming gluten structural protein complexes more quickly than without kneading.

Kneading's importance lies in the mixing of flour with water; when these two ingredients are combined and kneaded, the gliadin and glutenin proteins in the flour expand and form strands of gluten, which gives bread its texture. (To aid gluten production, many recipes use bread flour, which is higher in protein than all-purpose flour.) The kneading process warms and stretches these gluten strands, eventually creating a springy and elastic dough.

Cake is a baker's confectionery usually made from flour, sugar, and other ingredients and is usually baked. In their oldest forms, cakes were modifications of bread, but cakes now cover a wide range of preparations that can be simple or elaborate and which share features with desserts such as pastries, meringues, custards, and pies.

The most common ingredients include flour, sugar, eggs, fat (such as butter, oil, or margarine), a liquid, and a leavening agent, such as baking soda or baking powder. Common additional ingredients include dried, candied, or fresh fruit, nuts, cocoa, and extracts such as vanilla, with numerous substitutions for the primary ingredients. Cakes can also be filled with fruit preserves, nuts, or dessert sauces (like custard, jelly, cooked fruit, whipped cream, or syrups), iced with buttercream or other icings, and decorated with marzipan, piped borders, or candied fruit.

A kitchen stove, often called simply a stove or a cooker, is a kitchen appliance designed for the purpose of cooking food. Kitchen stoves rely on the application of direct heat for the cooking process and may also contain an oven, used for baking. "Cookstoves" (also called "cooking stoves" or "wood stoves") are heated by burning wood or charcoal; "gas stoves" are heated by gas; and "electric stoves" by electricity. A stove with a built-in cooktop is also called a range.

In the industrialized world, as stoves replaced open fires and braziers as a source of more efficient and reliable heating, models were developed that could also be used for cooking, and these came to be known as kitchen stoves. When homes began to be heated with central heating systems, there was less need for an appliance that served as both heat source and cooker and stand-alone cookers replaced them. Cooker and stove are often used interchangeably.