Frozen Bread Dough: a Smart Technology

Bread making is based on several simple unit operations, basically kneading, fermentation and baking; however, it is still a quite complex process and bread quality can be strongly affected by minor details. The market of bread production is roughly shared at 50-50 between the industry market and the artisanal market, even though the frontier between these two players is not very easy. Different strategies have been developped by the industry to extend the shelf life of bread or to interrupt the bread making process. Freezing for example has been used form the 50s to extend the shelf life of bakery products. It was first applied to fully baked products and then to frozen dough which appeared as an interesting strategy to interrupt the bread making protocol. This paper presents a review on key issues of the frozen dough technology.