An analytical procedure was developed to measure bromate residues in baked goods using a sequence of clean‐up procedures followed by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with a post‐column reaction for oxidants. Deionized water was used to extract bromate from bread samples. The extract was treated with a C‐18 solid phase extraction column to remove lipids, a cation exchange column with the silver cation to remove chloride, and an ultrafiltration membrane to remove proteins.