Emulsifiers in bread making

The literature on the application of emulsifiers for baking as dough conditioners and anti-staling agents, is reviewed. The first part of the paper is devoted to reviewing the various studies on dough handling and bread quality improvement due to emulsifiers. In the second part, emphasis is given to the presentation of the phenomenon of staling in bread. Considerable work has dealt with the application of emulsifiers in bread and bread models to understand the staling mechanism. Nevertheless, staling cannot be explained by one theory alone; it is more likely that staling is the result of numerous reactions between the different flour fractions.