As a star breakfast on my table all year round, toast is really convenient and versatile. Whether it is spread with jam, made into sandwiches, or simply toasted, it is delicious.
However, how do you preserve the bread you buy home? Do you put the toast in the refrigerator? In fact, this will not keep it fresh at all, but will accelerate aging.
01
Bread preservation tips
/ Don’t refrigerate! Don’t refrigerate! /
Freshly baked bread has a crispy crust, soft core, and charming wheat aroma. However, if you don’t finish it immediately, it will lose its aroma after being left for a while, and it will become hard and difficult to swallow. This is the phenomenon of bread staling.
The aging of bread is not just the loss of water and drying, but the structural change caused by the precipitation and crystallization of starch. However, heating it (above 60℃) can re-melt some of the crystallized starch into a flexible gel (gelatinization), restoring it to a relatively fresh state. At the same time, the Maillard reaction brought about by the high temperature of baking also increases the flavor level and gives it a more wonderful taste.
Therefore, it is best to re-bake the bread before eating it at home.
If you have an oven and an air fryer at home, re-baking is very convenient; if you don’t have an oven and an air fryer, it is also very OK to heat it directly in a pan; at worst, heating it slightly in a microwave will be better than hard toast.
In addition to re-baking, we can also prevent bread from aging from the source.
❶ First of all, remember not to refrigerate! 4°C in the refrigerator is the best temperature for starch coagulation and crystallization. Refrigerating the bread will not keep it fresh, but will only accelerate aging.
❷ If you can finish it within 3 days, just put the bread at room temperature (if the temperature is not high, it is actually not a big problem to put it for about a week).
❸ If you can’t finish it in a short time, cut the bread into pieces, seal it with a fresh-keeping bag, put it in the freezer, and re-bake it when you eat it. The loss of taste and flavor in this way is almost negligible.
02
The evolution of double-baked bread
/ A history of the evolution of human wisdom /
In fact, toast was originally the action of re-toasting bread, and over time it gradually evolved into re-toasted bread.
The original toast was probably heated on the stone slab of the oven, and it was difficult to control the temperature, so people gradually began to use simple equipment such as wire racks to make it toast more evenly. But until the early 19th century, many British housewives still used forks to toast over an open flame.
The qualitative leap occurred in 1839, when Scotland invented the world’s first electric toaster. However, because the product still had some bugs at the time (iron wires were easy to melt and there was a fire hazard), and electricity was not yet popular in ordinary households, there was no market.
After several improvements, using highly fire-resistant alloys and adding automatic power-off modules, the timed pop-up toaster we see today was finally born in the United States (1919). Today, the popularity of toasters is also very high worldwide. Later, Hong Kong translated it into “toaster” and “toast”, and we have followed suit and called it toast for so many years.
Do you think that electric toasting is convenient enough? You know, this world has always been driven by foodies and lazy people. Rohwedder in the United States spent 16 years studying bread slicing and preservation technology after slicing, and finally began to sell bagged sliced bread in 1928.
This was a successful business attempt. The sales of sliced bread soared rapidly and was hailed as Wonder-Sliced Bread. Commercial production began in 1930, making sliced bread gradually popular in the United States and even the world, becoming an indispensable household staple.
03
French toast
/ Best French toast improvement /
To make French toast, you need to soak it in a mixture of eggs and milk before frying it, so overnight bread is very suitable. Fresh bread has been naturally dried and become harder, so it can absorb the egg and milk better and is less likely to fall apart when fried.
Traditional French toast is seasoned with cinnamon powder and vanilla extract in the egg and milk mixture, and is served with butter, fruit, etc. But in addition to this, there are many improved versions of French toast.
Among the many improved versions of French toast, the most popular one comes from Hong Kong. Even the name has changed from ordinary French toast to unique French toast.
French toast uses cheaper white bread, the mixture changes from milk and eggs to egg liquid, and the method changes from light frying in a pan to deep frying or frying in butter, so the bread becomes particularly golden and crispy. In order to pursue the taste, white bread is often cut into 9 pieces.
In the early days, French toast was mostly seasoned with kaya (a sweet sauce with coconut flavor made from coconut milk, eggs and sugar) because syrup was expensive. Nowadays, common French toast seasonings include honey, maple syrup, peanut butter, butter, etc.
Most traditional French toasts have no fillings, but as tea restaurants continue to innovate, deluxe French toasts that are similar to sandwiches, with cheese, ham, peanut butter or satay beef sandwiched between two slices of white bread, then coated with egg liquid and fried, have become very common.
Leaky Milk Toast, in terms of its cooking method, is very much like a modified version of French toast. Although Leaky Milk Toast became popular all over the country from Hong Kong-style tea restaurants, it actually does not come from Hong Kong, but is a dessert made by the owner of a tea restaurant in Panyu, Guangzhou for his friends.
The reason why it is called “leaky milk toast” is because of the juice that flows out when it is cut. This mixture is not just milk, it is made by heating butter, evaporated milk and condensed milk in a certain proportion.
The key to leaky milk toast is to press down to make a depression on the top layer of fried French toast, pour the mixture into it, and form a milk pool. Sprinkle Ovaltine powder on the milk pool, cut it with a knife, and the milk will pour out from between the two slices of toast.
Although the name of French toast contains the word “toast”, in fact, in the traditional method, the commonly used bread types are not common white bread, but brioche, challah and baguette. So, you can also try this method with other breads~
