Here you will find recipes for classic breads from around the world, including yeast-leavened breads, unleavened breads, flatbreads, buns and sweet breads. There are hundreds of recipes here that range from some of the very earliest breads known to be baked by humans right through to the most modern recipes for bread-making machines.

You will also find bread recipes, derived from period sources, here all the way from ancient Roman breads through Medieval breads, Elizabethan breads, Stuart right up to Victorian and modern Fusion recipes. Essentially the history of bread making is presented on this site and you can re-create these breads at home to gain a taste of historic breads. We know that bread has been baked for at least 7000 years, from the stone age through to today. Indeed, before the availability of potatoes bread formed the staple foodstuff of much of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. As a foodstuff bread is incredibly versatile, made from a starch source (wheat or barley) and using yeast as a rising agent. Put this way, it would seem that a bread could be made with any flour. So you might expect Maize breads in the Americas, Rice breads in Asia and Millet or Sorghum breads in Africa. However, this ignores a truly amazing property of wheat and barley grains.

The important factor here is that 80% of all the protein (ie the total protein) in wheat and barley grains is made from two proteins: gliadin and glutenin. These are bound together in the starchy part of the grain, but when wheat flour is kneaded some of the glutenin molecules are released from the starch and these cross-link with one another to form gluten and it's this gluten that gives bread it's amazing properties.

In ancient Rome, the basic bread dough was sometimes enriched with butter, eggs, and honey, which produced a sweet and cake-like baked goods.

Early cakes in Medieval Europe were also essentially bread: the most obvious differences between a 'cake' and 'bread' were the round, flat shape of the cakes and the cooking method, which turned cakes over once while cooking, while bread was left upright throughout the baking process. Though by the late middle ages, cakes would be flavoured with sweet spices and then with honey before being made richer with the inclusion of eggs and sugar.

That's why, as you knead bread dough it becomes noticeably, physically, smooth and elastic. This is because the kneading process forces some of the protein out of the starch within the grains, allowing for a network of gluten molecules to form throughout the dough, binding it together. If yeast is added this ferments the sugars in the grain producing bubbles of carbon dioxide. These bubbles are trapped by the gluten network and when the gas is warmed by being heated in an oven it expands, causing the bread to rise. Baking also solidifies the gluten network by coagulation so that the bread sets firm with a smooth texture. Which is not to say that you can't add other ingredients to bread. Typically you can add up to 20% of any other flour to a bread dough and it will still rise and keep its bread-like properties. Indeed, there is a move now to introduce more millet (a native African grain) into the breads of Africa, as wheat only grows in a few African countries. Other breads include flours made from cassava, yams and plantains as well as grated or mashed versions of these foodstuffs.

As a bread, at the most basic level can be any type of savoury baked dough that includes a rising agent (typically yeast, but also baking soda) I'm using a fairly loose definition in terms of selecting bread recipes for inclusion on this page. I also have bread recipes from the stone age to the present day as well as representative breads from all across the globe. Bread is incredibly versatile as a foodstuff, keeps for many days and there's nothing like the aroma of your own freshly-baked bread filling your kitchen on a sunny weekend morning.