Microwave Energy for Bread Baking and its Effect on the Nutritive Value of Bread: A Review ¹

Microwave energy offers savings in labor, processing time, and space in bread baking. Two constraints, however, limit its application: microwave-baked bread lacks the characteristic brown crust, and baking pans, inexpensive and suitable, are still to be developed for microwave baking of sandwich-type breads. To provide the brown crust, a combined microwave and thermal heating process was recommended to prepare brown-and-serve rolls and white bread. By such a process, a flour with low protein content and high alpha-amylase could be used to prepare acceptable bread. Combined microwave and thermal heating also was suggested to proof dough and bake it to reduce processing time and energy required for bread making. Microwave energy also was found practical to bake relatively dark breads such as whole-wheat and rye breads where brown crusts were less important. Nutritionally, microwave baking does not produce browning reactions to reduce the availability of lysine so it minimizes nutritive losses during baking.