Baking with Improved Ovens

Overview /Background

Baking refers to a process “to cook by dry heat“ and is therefore next to cooking another essential way of preparing food from raw staple crops. Usually, it takes place in an oven or on a hotplate, but also in hot ashes or on hot stones. Baking is primarily applied to the process of preparing bread, and is also applied for firing and hardening pottery, earthenware or bricks by heat.

During baking, the heating process is done by a combination of three forms of heat: by infra-red energy that is radiated from oven walls, by circulating hot air; and by conduction through the baking pan or tray. That means the efficiency of the baking process depends on the optimal use of three different parts of the device: the walls, the tray and the ventilation system.

Burning biomass within the device produces the desired heat. Subsequently, the goods are placed inside and are baked for a certain amount of time. In the simplest way, a fire is lighted in a pit on the ground and after being burned down, the covered food is started to be baked (earth oven).

The chemical changes during the baking process allow for two improvements:

The dough is transformed into an eatable food (nutritional improvement).

At the same time, microorganisms causing spoilage are destroyed prolonging keeping time of the product (food preservation).

Unlike other cooking methods, baking does not alter the nutritional value of the food item, e.g. the fat and calorie content of the food.