Dictionary Definition
staleness
Noun
1 unoriginality as a result of being dull and
hackneyed [syn: triteness]
2 having lost purity and freshness as a
consequence of aging [ant: freshness]
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Noun
staleness- The property of being stale.
Extensive Definition
Staling is a chemical and physical process in
bread that reduces its
palatability. Stale bread is dry and leathery.
Staling is not, as is commonly believed, simply a
drying out process. Bread will stale even in a moist environment,
and stales most rapidly at temperatures just above freezing.
Although the precise mechanism of staling is
still unknown, one important mechanism appears to be migration of
moisture from the starch
granules into the interstitial
spaces, degelatinizing the starch.
This results in stale bread's leathery texture.
Culinary uses
Specifically stale bread is an important
ingredient in many dishes, some of which were invented for the
express purpose of using up otherwise unpalatable stale bread.
Examples include skordalia, bread sauce,
croutons, haslet, gazpacho, french
toast, and flummadiddle.
Destaling
Stale bread can be partially destaled by heating
to 60 °C (140 °F) in an oven. This re-gelatinizes
the starch granules.
See also
References
- On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen Harold McGee. (ISBN 0-684-80001-2, 2004)
- The study of bread staling using visible and near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy, Feng Xie.