Staling

Staling is not, as is commonly believed, simply a drying out process. Bread will stale even in a moist environment, and stales most rapidly at temperatures just above freezing.

Although the precise mechanism of staling is still unknown, one important mechanism appears to be migration of moisture from the starch granules into the interstitial spaces, degelatinizing the starch. This results in stale bread's leathery texture.

Culinary uses

Specifically stale bread is an important ingredient in many dishes, some of which were invented for the express purpose of using up otherwise unpalatable stale bread. Examples include bread pudding, skordalia, bread sauce, fondue, croutons, haslet, gazpacho, french toast, and flummadiddle.

Destaling

Stale bread can be partially destaled by heating to 60 °C (140 °F) in an oven. This re-gelatinizes the starch granules.

References

• The study of bread staling using visible and near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy, Feng Xie.