Real Bread

How Long Will It Keep, How to Keep It Longer, Make It Fresh Again

When bread comes out of the oven the interior is sort of a molten mass.  For this reason, you should never cut it until it cools, regardless of what the ads may say about “bread hot from the oven.”  Once it does cool, however, it immediately begins the “staling process” (ain’t life just like that…).  This is a function both of drying out, and coagulation of the starches in the bread.

To combat drying out, you can put the bread in a plastic bag.  What you lose in doing this is the crispness of the crust.  We sell our bread in paper bags because our breads are crusty breads, and the crust keeps better in paper than plastic.  But we recommend, especially with the yeasted breads, that what you don’t eat the first day you put in plastic.  This will keep the bread from drying out, and then~

To make the bread crisp again, simply put it in a 375-degree oven, say five to seven minutes for a baguette, ten minutes for a larger bread.  This not only will crisp the bread, but will actually freshen it, by sort of melting those coagulated starches so they get redistributed throughout the bread.  See, it’s scientific!  As with freshly baked bread, you should let the reheated bread cool a few minutes before cutting.

Sourdough is a different story.  Sourdough breads, especially the larger loaves, will remain delicious for several days, either in the paper bag or a bread box, or as we tend to do, just left on the bread board, cut side down.  The crust will become crustier; indeed, it will become quite hard, but if you’re a real sourdough fancier you’ll probably like that.  Of course you can put it in plastic, with the same results you’ll get with yeasted breads, and you can crisp sourdough the same way as well.

So in brief:  Put yeast breads in plastic after the first day;  crisp them by putting them in a 375 oven for five to ten minutes, depending on the size of the bread.  Follow your own bliss vis à vis sourdough.

      Real Bread freezes very well (I’d guess that most of the bread we eat was frozen at some point).  Put it in a plastic bag to prevent drying, thaw it in the open bag, crisp it as described above.

Bon pain pour tous!  

—These breads are homemade products which are not subject to state inspection.

Send mail to brettlaidlaw@eckmeier.com with questions or comments about this web site.
Last modified: 05/20/08