Staling, or "going stale", is a chemical and physical process in

bread Bread is a staple food prepared from a dough of flour (usually wheat) and water, usually by baking. Throughout recorded history and around the world, it has been an important part of many cultures' diet. It is one of the oldest human-made f ...

and similar foods that reduces their palatability - stale bread is dry and hard.

Mechanism and effects

Staling is not simply a drying-out process due to

evaporation Evaporation is a type of vaporization that occurs on the surface of a liquid as it changes into the gas phase. High concentration of the evaporating substance in the surrounding gas significantly slows down evaporation, such as when h ...

. One important mechanism is the migration of moisture from the

starch Starch or amylum is a polymeric carbohydrate consisting of numerous glucose units joined by glycosidic bonds. This polysaccharide is produced by most green plants for energy storage. Worldwide, it is the most common carbohydrate in human die ...

granules into the interstitial spaces, degelatinizing the starch. The starch

amylose Amylose is a polysaccharide made of α-D-glucose units, bonded to each other through α(1→4) glycosidic bonds. It is one of the two components of starch, making up approximately 20–30%. Because of its tightly packed helical structure, amylose ...

and

amylopectin Amylopectin is a water-insoluble polysaccharide and highly branched polymer of α-glucose units found in plants. It is one of the two components of starch, the other being amylose. Plants store starch within specialized organelles called amyloplas ...

molecules realign themselves causing recrystallisation. This results in stale bread's leathery, hard texture. Bread will stale even in a moist environment, and stales most rapidly at temperatures just above freezing. While bread that has been frozen when fresh may be thawed acceptably, bread stored in a refrigerator will have increased staling rates.

Countermeasures

Anti-staling agents used in modern bread include wheat gluten,

enzymes Enzymes () are proteins that act as biological catalysts by accelerating chemical reactions. The molecules upon which enzymes may act are called substrates, and the enzyme converts the substrates into different molecules known as products. ...

, and glycerolipids, mainly

monoglyceride Monoglycerides (also: acylglycerols or monoacylglycerols) are a class of glycerides which are composed of a molecule of glycerol linked to a fatty acid via an ester bond. As glycerol contains both primary and secondary alcohol groups two differen ...

s and diglycerides.

Culinary uses

Many classic dishes rely upon otherwise unpalatable stale bread. Examples include bread sauce, bread dumplings, and flummadiddle, an early American savoury pudding. There are also many types of bread soups such as wodzionka (in

Silesian cuisine Silesian cuisine belongs to the region of Silesia in Central Europe. It is a subtype of Polish and German cuisine with many similarities to and signs of the influence of neighbouring cuisines. The cuisine is particularly renowned for its popp ...

) and ribollita (in

Italian cuisine Italian cuisine (, ) is a Mediterranean cuisine#CITEREFDavid1988, David 1988, Introduction, pp.101–103 consisting of the ingredients, recipes and List of cooking techniques, cooking techniques developed across the Italian Peninsula and late ...

). An often-sweet dish is bread pudding. Cubes of stale bread can be dipped in cheese fondue, or seasoned and baked in the oven to become

crouton A crouton is a piece of rebaked bread, often cubed and seasoned. Croutons are used to add texture and flavor to salads—notably the Caesar salad— or eaten as a snack food. Etymology The word crouton is derived from the French ''croûton' ...

s, suitable for scattering in salads or on top of soups. Slices of stale bread soaked in an egg and milk mixture and then fried turn into French toast (known in French as ''pain perdu'' - lost bread). In Spanish and Portuguese cuisines '' migas'' is a breakfast dish using stale bread, and in Tunisian cuisine ''

leblebi Leblebi ( tr, leblebi; acm, لبلبي, leblebi; ar, قضامة, Qdameh, Qudamah; fa, نخودچی, Nokhodchi; scn, Càlia) is a snack made from roasted chickpeas, common and popular in Iran, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Greece ...

'' is a soup of chickpeas and stale bread. Stale bread or breadcrumbs made from it can be used to "stretch" meat in dishes such as

haslet In British English, haslet or acelet is a pork meatloaf with herbs, originally from Lincolnshire. The word is derived from the Old French meaning ''entrails''. In Lincolnshire, haslet (pronounced '/ˈhæslɪt/' locally) is typically made from s ...

(a type of

meatloaf Meatloaf is a dish of ground meat that has been combined with other ingredients and formed into the shape of a loaf, then baked or smoked. The final shape is either hand-formed on a baking tray, or pan-formed by cooking it in a loaf pan. ...

British cuisine British cuisine is the specific set of cooking traditions and practices associated with the United Kingdom. Historically, British cuisine meant "unfussy dishes made with quality local ingredients, matched with simple sauces to accentuate flavou ...

, or meatloaf itself) and garbure (a stew in

French cuisine French cuisine () is the cooking traditions and practices from France. It has been influenced over the centuries by the many surrounding cultures of Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Belgium, in addition to the food traditions of the re ...

). It can be a subsidiary ingredient in dishes such as

fattoush Fattoush ( ar, فتوش; also fattush, fatush, fattoosh, and fattouche) is a Levantine salad made from toasted or fried pieces of khubz (Arabic flat bread) combined with mixed greens and other vegetables, such as radishes and tomatoes.Wright, ...

(a type of salad in

Levantine cuisine Levantine cuisine is the traditional cuisine of the Levant. Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of Levantine cuisine is ''meze'' including ''tabbouleh'', ''hummus'' and ''baba ghanoush''. Levantine dishes * Arabic coffee (قهوة عر ...

). Stale bread can be used as a base for dips such as skordalia (in

Greek cuisine Greek cuisine ( Greek: Ελληνική Κουζίνα) is the cuisine of Greece and the Greek diaspora. In common with many other cuisines of the Mediterranean, it is founded on the triad of wheat, olive oil, and wine. It uses vegetables, ol ...

), or substituted with another ingredient. In

medieval cuisine Medieval cuisine includes foods, eating habits, and cooking methods of various European cultures during the Middle Ages, which lasted from the fifth to the fifteenth century. During this period, diets and cooking changed less than they did in t ...

, slices of stale bread, called trenchers, were used instead of plates.

Destaling

Stale bread can be partially made fresh again by heating to 60 °C in a conventional oven or

microwave oven A microwave oven (commonly referred to as a microwave) is an electric oven that heats and cooks food by exposing it to electromagnetic radiation in the microwave frequency range. This induces polar molecules in the food to rotate and produce ...

Mechanism and effects

Countermeasures

Culinary uses

Destaling

References

Further reading