Bread is a breakfast favourite and is not a culture-specific food. The recipes may differ from culture to culture but there’s a bread for everybody. Bread is also a very versatile food, goes well with countless dippings and stews, with eggs, used in making sandwiches and a ton more of other dishes. Now, nobody likes anything that doesn’t have the element of freshness, and it might be a bit harder in determining that in bread. Bread is even enjoyed far better when they’ve just been baked or a few hours, not days later. Here are a few tips on how to spot fresh bread.
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COLOUR
A close look at the bread can answer the most basic question of whether the bread has gone stale or not. Stale bread would have developed molds that are fairly easy to spot. Even if not molds, at the least discoloration on the bread would be pretty obvious. If you find something green or pinkish sticking out of that bread loaf, then the trash would probably find better use for it.
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TEXTURE
A gentle squeeze of the loaf can also give answers to the question of freshness. Bread is normally expected to be soft if not very soft. So, if you give that loaf a gentle squeeze and you find it stiff and hard then that bread is definitely not fresh.
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SMELL
The unique aroma of bread cannot be confused with anything else; bread would smell like bread. So, if you lift that loaf to your nose and you perceive something else or don’t perceive anything at all (yes, no smell is not a good sign either), then that loaf is definitely not fresh.
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TAGS
Although this does not apply to all, many bread companies tag their loaves with different colours based on the day of the week they were produced. Once you familiarize yourself with a particular bakery’s coding system, to pick out the freshest of loaves wouldn’t be as hard.
If you already have the loaves you could also do a knife test if your loaf maintains its rigid shape when you try to cut through with a knife, then it is not fresh, as fresh breads are moist and elastic on the inside.
