The number one rule to preserve bread at home is to start from a good product. We will hardly be able to work the miracle with an industrial pre-frozen bar made with cheap flour and fast fermentation. But, if we have invested in a quality artisan loaf, or if we bake our own homemade bread, we want stay in good condition several days. Whatever you do, never put it in the fridge.
The baker and businesswoman already warned us Beatriz Echeverriaof Babette’s Oven: it is best to wrap the bread in a clean cotton or linen cloth that has not been washed with fabric softeners or perfumes. Or, failing that, a suitable bread bin, kraft paper bag, or waxed paper. But, always, always, at room temperature, in a cool, dry place without direct light. There is actually an exception, but we can ignore it for now.
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The scientific explanation for escaping from the refrigerator
The only thing that the fridge achieves is to accelerate the loss of quality of the bread, shortening its useful life and causing it to spoil much sooner.
A bread is spoiled when it becomes hard and rancid. It hardens because it loses moisture, but also because a retrogradation and recrystallization of starches containing. And what is that? The expert Daniel Gritzer, following Harold Mcgee, explains it very well, and we already discussed it in DAP some time ago.
A bread dough is made up of proteins and starches that absorb liquids during kneading, fermenting and baking. But the key to the transformation is above all in the last step, the heat of the oven. These molecules break its shape and give structure to the final bread. And when it cools down, they turn to reconfigure.
As the hours and days go by, little by little, the starches and proteins they regress, absorb moisture again, returning to its original state. It is the recrystallization that causes it to become hard, dry and somewhat rancid. Goodbye tender and tasty bread; hello French toast, calatrava bread and pudding -good bread is not thrown away, not even when it is hard-.
A fridge is a dry and very cold environment, with a temperature slightly above freezing. The perfect atmosphere for these processes to accelerate dramatically, not to mention the strange smells that can take a bread inside. The freezer, on the other hand, stops and slows down this degradation, giving us more room for conservation.
The exception that proves the rule
We only recommend keeping the very moist breads, dense and with a low proportion of starches or gluten in its crumb, especially in summer or in warmer and more humid climates. We talk about type breads jokesvery tasty Portuguese, Galician and Asturian, with a moist and juicy crumb, usually with corn, rye or buckwheat flour. Before they dry out, they could develop molds.
We will also mention the bread for torrijas, although here it is not so much about keeping it tender, but everything otherwise. If you’re in a hurry and it’s still too soft, you can leave the cut slices in the fridge without piling up; they will dry sooner.
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Photos | freepik
In DAP | Homemade bread without oven
In DAP | Homemade buckwheat bread, quick and easy recipe with buckwheat
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The fridge is the worst place to keep bread: this is why, according to science
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Direct to the Palate
by Liliana Fuchs.
