in English, refers primarily to the action of making up all sorts of flour-based goods such as breads and cakes, and cooking them, usually in an oven, although some are ‘baked’ on a griddle. A group of items produced at one time may be referred to collectively as ‘a baking’, and the day on which they are produced as a ‘baking day’. Some N. European languages have similar words (such as German backen, from the same root as the English word) but S. Europeans have no equivalent to this general concept.
Baking also has a more general meaning, denoting the cooking of food, uncovered, in an enclosed oven: many Sunday ‘roasts’ are actually baked, as are foods cooked in a tandoor. It is also used of food wrapped in a protective cover (for instance, aluminium foil) and placed in the ashes of a fire (e.g. ‘baked potatoes’). A clambake is a primitive, and now rather special, variant on the idea of baking.
In English, ‘baking’ in the primary sense has been used with reference to bread and other flour-based items since the Middle Ages. The recipes and methods were transmitted from royal and noble households to country houses. In the 16th and 17th centuries the skills of the pastry-cook were added to those of the worker with yeast dough, so that in modern Britain domestic and commercial bakers take in skills from both fields of expertise, in contrast to France, for example, where the boulanger and the pâtissier remain clearly separated.
Home baking has long been an important activity in England, but the skills required and the emphasis have changed over the centuries. Until the 19th century it was only in southern England that wheat flour was predominant; before this time, only relatively wealthy households had enclosed ovens. These were wood fired, providing falling heat until cold again, a process which took roughly 24 hours, necessitating a concentrated one-day baking session. Heated infrequently, they were used whilst very hot to bake coarse and fine breads, followed by cakes and biscuits as the heat declined. Poorer households, with no oven of their own, used Dutch ovens, or griddles, or sent their dough to public bakehouses. The coal-fired range, developed in the 19th century, and 20th-century gas and electric ovens made the home baker's life easier.
In the southern part of England, baker's bread was commonly being bought, even by poor people, well before the 19th century. The habit of home baking has lasted much longer in N. England and in Scotland. Peter Brears (1987) comments that in Yorkshire:
The period from around 1850 up to the Second World War can now be seen as a ‘golden age’ of home baking, when almost every housewife took a great pride in baking all the bread, cakes and puddings eaten by her family, instead of relying on mass-produced convenience foods.
A similar practice of home baking prevails in some other European countries, especially in the North and especially at Christmas and the new year.
Laura Mason has written about several aspects of British food in books including Sugar Plums and Sherbet (1998), Farmhouse Cookery (2005), and Traditional Foods of Britain (1999), which she co-authored with Catherine Brown.
Brears, Peter (1987), Traditional Food in Yorkshire, Edinburgh: John Donald.
