Is there a trick to turn old bread into almost-new bread?
Whenever I buy bread, it's flavor and texture is amazing in the first day. The bread is humid and soft. In 2 or 3 days, it gets hard. Is there some trick to renew the bread to a nicer state?
Best Answer
While it is never possible to restore bread to its fresh baked glory, toasting can help.
The main staling mechanism in bread is the re-crystalization of the formerly gelatinized starches, making the bread seem hard and dry.
Toasting heats the bread up, and helps the starches re-gelatinize, and so can help mitigate the staleness, although it is not a complete cure.
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Quick Answer about "Is there a trick to turn old bread into almost-new bread?"
For a slice of bread, take a piece of paper towel and dip it in water so it's damp. Wrap it around the bread, and place the slice on a microwavable plate. Heat it up for 10 seconds. Once time's up, unwrap it and voila!Can you use old bread to make new bread?
In Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes, Jeffrey Hamelman writes, \u201cThe practice of soaking old bread and then adding it into a new batch not only makes economic sense, it also gives a rich depth of flavor to the new breads. Far from being expended, the old bread contains much that is still fermentable\u2026\u201dHow do you rejuvenate stale bread?
How to Revive Stale BreadHow do you make old bread new again?
Giving your bread a quick bake in a 350\xbaF oven will starve it of its moisture\u2014which is exactly what you're looking for. Cut your loaf into evenly sized cubes or slices (depending on what you're making), and toast them, dry, for 15 to 20 minutes, or until lightly golden brown. Proceed with your recipe.HOW TO REVIVE STALE BREAD | Quick stale bread hack you definitely need to know!
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Answer 2
The trick I learned from my grandfather is harder to do these days because of the prevelance of plastic bags:
- Heat your oven.
- Wet down the inside of a paper bag.
- Place the loaf of bread in the paper bag, and fold it over to seal
- Place the paper bag in the oven.
- Extract it before the paper looks like it's getting crispy.
As rumtscho mentions in his comment, once it cools back down, it can firm back up, but I find that it'll take longer than just warming it up in a dry oven. (I don't know if it's an issue with extra heat being transfered in the water, so it takes longer to cool, or if there's something chemical going on).
And as I'll probably get questions about what oven temperature -- whatever temp you're baking everything else at. If you're not cooking anything else, try 300F / 150C ... it's most important to heat it up to generate steam on the inside of the bag, but not so hot that the bag combusts.
(white paper bags are better than brown in my opinion, as you can see 'em starting to char a little bit to signal when to remove them)
Answer 3
Bread actually gets stale because it has gotten too moist, not because it's actually dry as common sense would indicate. Put it in the oven at a low temperature for a while and it should be better.
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