“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
— William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Had Hamlet been a baker, he might have been referring to the miracles of chemistry and physics that underlie the transformation of flour, water, yeast and salt into bread. In the Guild’s first webinar, Andrew Ross and Lee Glass will fill in some of the details of those miracles, about which those who baked in Shakespeare’s time could only dream. It is Andrew and Lee’s belief that with an understanding of the processes that underlie bread baking, today’s baker can better influence what occurs in the mixer, tub, speed rack, proofer, retarder and oven, and thereby can have a greater influence on the conversion of raw ingredients into a final product.
Andrew Ross is an Associate Professor in Crop and Food Sciences at Oregon State University, where he teaches food chemistry and small grain processing. He has studied baking at the San Francisco Baking Institute and has taught about the sciences of baking and other cereal-based foods in Europe, Australia, and the US. He received the 2011 Excellence in Teaching Award from Oregon State’s College of Agriculture Sciences.
Lee Glass is a physician in Washington state. He has studied the art of baking at the San Francisco Baking Institute and the sciences that underlie the baking process at both the University of California and the University of Washington School of Medi- cine. Leavened dough, he believes, has a life force. How living dough reacts to a baker’s intentions reflects the degree to which the baker expressly or intuitively understands the life with which he or she works.
Andrew and Lee co-taught “The Science of Baking” at WheatStalk 2012.
Source: The Bread Bakers Guild Of America
