What to do with your bread and pastries

As wonderful as bread can be, it unfortunately does go stale — and even more quickly when made without preservatives and other additives like our bread. That’s why we’re here to help you keep your bread fresh for as long as possible and to offer some ways to bring your bread back to how it was right as our artisan bakers pulled it out of our ovens.

Storing Your Order

To start, as soon as you receive your BREADBAR order, make sure to store everything in a dry place at room temperature. You can cover your bread with a cloth or store it in a bread bag. However, never refrigerate your bread. Once you start slicing your bread, make sure that the sliced side is always set face down against the table surface. If you would like to keep your bread for longer periods of time, you can also tightly seal your bread and then freeze it.

Warming Your Bread

Before you start eating your bread — especially the nice crusty loaves — we recommend you use this old baker’s trick to bring back the crispiness of the crust and the moist, softness of the interior crumb. Just follow these easy steps:

1. Set your oven to 400°F with a rack in the center of your oven
2. Holding your loaf upside down, wet the underside with a good amount of water
3. Once your oven reaches 400°F, place the loaf directly onto the rack; no sheet tray required
4. Let your loaf warm up for about 10 minutes, or when the crust crackles under pressure, and then remove your loaf from your oven

By wetting the underside of the bread like this, your home oven can mimic the steam produced by many commercial ovens. As the water warms up and works its way through the loaf, it hydrates the interior crumb, and once some of the water evaporates out of the loaf, it becomes steam trapped inside your oven. This steam is what helps give the crust its crispness and crunchiness. Lastly, if the crust of your bread needs an extra boost, you can also use a spray bottle to spray a fine mist into the oven, increasing the amount of steam inside.

Warming Your Pastries

When it comes to enjoying your BREADBAR pastries, we also recommend that you warm them up in the oven first to get the best, most scrumptious results. Just follow these steps:

1. Set your oven to 400°F with a rack in the center of your oven
2. Place the pastries you would like to warm up on a sheet tray
3. Once your oven reaches 400°F, place the sheet tray with your pastries in your oven
4. As soon as you close your oven with your pastries inside it, turn your oven off so that it begins to cool down while your pastries warm up
5. Let your pastries warm up for about 10 minutes before removing them from your oven

While it may seem counterintuitive to turn your oven off the moment it begins to warm up your pastries, this method balances the need to thoroughly warm your pastries with the need to respect their delicateness. The immediate, intense heat helps crisp up the outside — especially on flaky pastries like croissants — and the ensuing gentler heat ensures the interior of your pastries are warmed without burning the exteriors.

– Team BREADBAR

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