The simplest trick to rescue hard bread

With hard bread, we can make a bread pudding or a capirotada, but sometimes making a dessert is not the destination we wanted for that baguette we didn’t finish, either due to lack of time or perhaps because we bought too much. The good thing is that there is a very simple trick to rescue it.But let’s start with the basics. In reality, bread doesn't take long to become hard, especially savory bread, as sweet bread has a more moist dough. Bread contains starch, which has a crystalline structure, but it absorbs moisture when the dough is cooked in the oven, which is why it has that fluffy consistency typical of fresh bread.However, as time passes, the starch goes through a process where its granules lose some water, as it moves to the surface of the bread and evaporates. Thus, the starch in the bread returns to its crystalline structure, which is why it becomes hard. However, you can reverse this and soften the bread with basic tricks that involve water and heat.How to soften hard bread?The simplest way to soften hard bread, at least temporarily, is to heat it, as this allows the water to be reabsorbed into the starches. For example, if it’s pre-sliced bread, you can simply put it in the toaster for a few seconds, and it will be ready and soft to eat immediately.Now, if it’s a whole loaf and not sliced, another common trick is to use water, and it's the simplest, although you can also use milk. According to Brenda Villagómez, a chef at Kiwilimon, “the bread is softened with temperature: spray some liquid (either water or milk), wrap it very well in a cotton cloth, and cook it in the microwave for intervals of 20 seconds to ensure it doesn’t toast from the heat.”You can also soften it with steam: place the bread in a steamer for at least 3 minutes to absorb moisture, and you're done. Just like the microwave, it’s also common to do this in the oven, and this trick is very common in bakeries where they cannot afford to lose that bread; this technique is practiced more on savory breads, as sweet bread tends to be more lubricated.If you do it in the oven, it’s important to keep the temperature low, around 55 to 85 degrees Celsius. Carefully moisten the crust with a brush and wrap your piece of bread tightly in aluminum foil, place it in the center of the oven, and let it bake for 15 to 20 minutes if the bread is not whole, and 30 minutes if it is.It is very important to know that it should be consumed immediately, as it tends to harden again quickly, especially if you soften it in the microwave, so you should anticipate this when doing so. If not, you can always use it to make homemade breadcrumbs, some croutons, or to thicken a soup.