Many of you may wonder what kinds of bakery products we eat today. So today we introduce the different types of bakery, so you can call them by their proper names and get to know them better.
If you are ready, let's get to know the types of bakery. Bakery products are divided into six types.
1. Bread
Bread is a food made from wheat flour mixed with water and yeast or baking powder. Other ingredients may be added for colour, flavour and aroma, depending on the type of bread and the country where it is made. The ingredients are mixed together and baked. There are many types of bread, such as French bread, sandwich bread and sweet bread.
Bread can be eaten as it is, usually with butter, peanut butter, jam, jelly, marmalade or honey, or made into a sandwich as you like. It can be baked or toasted and served hot or cold. Bread should be kept in a bread box to stay fresh; in fact, bread goes mouldy easily at cool temperatures.
Bread is the main and most popular bakery product and a staple food in the West. It can be divided into four groups by fat content:
- Low fat, 0 to 3%: French bread, hard rolls, rye bread and other crusty breads
- Fat 4 to 8%: sandwich bread, English bread, wholewheat bread, hamburger buns, hot dog buns, kha kai (Thai bread sticks)
- Fat 9 to 15%: filled breads, open-topped breads, yeast doughnuts
- High fat, over 15%: sweet breads, raisin, fruit, coconut and butter breads
2. Cake
Cake is the second most popular group, enjoyed as a snack. Cakes are colourfully decorated, come in a huge variety and can be created in countless ways. They can be divided into three types:
- Sponge cake: made from three main ingredients: eggs, sugar and flour. It rises from eggs whipped with air, for example khanom khai (Thai egg cake), roll cakes and butter sponge cake.
- Butter cake: adds fat, which makes the cake moister. It can be made by several methods: the creaming method, the two-stage flour batter method, the blending method, the all-in method and the butter sponge method.
- Chiffon cake: adapted from the first two types by separating the yolks and whites. It is light, fluffy and soft but has a very short shelf life.
Cakes can be named in many ways according to their ingredients, for example butter cakes in flavours such as butter, coffee, chocolate, pandan or mocha, or khanom khai, jam roll, cream roll, chiffon cake, custard cake, upside-down cake, fancy cake, chocolate cake, brownie, banana cake, coconut-topped cake, fruit cake, foi thong (golden egg-yolk thread) cake, toffee cake, taro cake, ma mon cake and melon-seed cake.
3. Puff Pastry
Puff pastry is a baked good made up of layers, formed by layers of butter sandwiched between layers of dough. When baked at a high temperature, steam pressure makes the pastry puff up. The key to puff pastry is pastry margarine, which has a special property called plasticity that lets it be rolled into thin sheets. Puff pastry comes in both savoury and sweet versions and can be shaped however you like, such as chicken pie, beef pie, sausage roll, red pork pie, pineapple pie and coconut pie.
4. Danish and Croissant
These bakes combine bread and puff pastry, so they rise with yeast and have layers of butter inside that form a honeycomb-like structure. They come in many shapes and with many different fillings.
5. Short Dough, Cookies, Pies and Tarts
This group shares a similar kind of dough: crumbly and crisp.
5.1 Short Dough
Mostly used as a component of other bakes, for example as a base layer under a cake.
5.2 Cookies
Cookies fall into three main groups:
- Pressed cookies: light and airy, relying on creamed butter and sugar for lift, for example butter or coffee cookies.
- Frozen (icebox) cookies: crisp and firm, often with nuts or dried fruit mixed in, such as nut cookies, fruit cookies and fancy cookies.
- Drop cookies: flat, crisp and sweet, such as cheese cookies and almond cookies.
5.3 Short-Crust Pies and Tarts
These come open-faced or covered. Pies are usually large, while tarts are small with sweet fillings.
6. Choux Pastry and Éclairs
These bakes are hollow inside, created by steam pressure during baking. They are made from flour, fat, water and eggs, with the dough cooked before baking. They come in many shapes with all kinds of fillings.
And those are the different types of bakery products we wanted to share with you.
