#BakingTips: Ever wondered why a piece of bread keeps cookies soft? πͺπ Let me break it down for you!
##The Science Behind Soft Cookies
So you know how sometimes your cookies turn into rocks after a day or two? It’s all about moisture levels! When cookies are exposed to the air, they start to lose moisture and become stale. But when you add a piece of bread to the container, magic happens!
##How Bread Keeps Cookies Soft
That piece of bread is like a moisture magnet. It absorbs the excess moisture in the container, creating a humid environment that keeps the cookies nice and soft. Meanwhile, the bread itself becomes hardened because it’s absorbing all that moisture.
##Try it Yourself!
Next time you bake a fresh batch of cookies, pop a piece of bread in the container with them. Watch how they stay soft and chewy for days! It’s a simple trick that works like a charm.
##Conclusion
So there you have it, the secret behind using bread to keep your cookies soft. It’s a handy trick that your baker friend probably swears by, and now you can join in on the magic too! Don’t let your cookies go to waste – keep them fresh with a piece of bread. Happy baking! π₯πͺ
Think of it like a cookie-hospital. The bread is the brave volunteer donating its moisture to keep the cookie patients soft and yummy!
The air will essentially suck out some of the moisture of the cookies and bread to equilibrate somewhat over time–meaning they go stale. Bread has a lot of surface area, so the moisture gets pulled out of that first, and it equilibrates much faster *without* pulling moisture out of the cookies nearly so much.
Bread’s job application: Moisture lifeguard. Cookies’ job application: Crumbly crunch providers. Outcome: Moisture-rich, soft cookies and a hardworking, hardened piece of bread.
The bread has more moisture than the cookies do. Bread that is as moist as a cookie feels dried out because it usually has more. Cookies with as much moisture as bread tend to crumble and fall apart.
Stick the bread in the cookie jar and the moisture in the bread helps keep the moisture level in the jar higher than what is needed for the cookies to be moist, but itβs still drying out compared to the typical moisture level of the bread.
So many wrong answers here. Bread gets hard and stale because it _absorbs_ moisture from the air, which causes the starch to recrystalize and harden. Its greater surface area makes it a moisture sponge.
[https://www.tastingtable.com/1491347/why-science-stale-bread-hard/](https://www.tastingtable.com/1491347/why-science-stale-bread-hard/)
[https://foodcrumbles.com/how-bread-goes-stale/](https://foodcrumbles.com/how-bread-goes-stale/)
Wait don’t cookies go soft when they go stale? Why would you want a soft cookie?
Seems like a process similar to osmosis or just a system reaching homeostasis. Thereβs more moisture in the bread and when place in a closed container with cookies (less moist) the system has to balance out; drawing the moisture put of the bread which is absorbed nicely by the cookies. The moisture in the container as a whole doesn’t change.
The water in the bread slowly spreads into the dry cookies keeping them soft. When the bread eventually has the same moisture level as the cookies, it will get hard as a brick as its not as fatty as the cookies.