I live in a humid climate (especially in the summer), and if we don’t refrigerate our bread and tortillas, or any baked goods, they get moldy in like 4 days.
Have you tried freezing it?
Refrigerating baked goods accelerates staleness, but most baked goods freeze well.
I’ve had bread in the freezer for months, I throw it straight in the toaster and it comes out like, well… normal ass toast.
Good to know, I recently started getting bread from a local bakery but it doesn’t last, I’ll have to try freezing it next time
Freeze it every time.
If you’re anything less than a family of four, leaving bread at room temperature is just eating half a loaf of bread and then throwing away half a loaf of mouldy bread.
Most supermarket bread has indeed already been frozen before you get it.
I even freeze all the cakes from Costco, since they only seem to come in packs of about a thousand.
Only exception for me is tortillas. I mean they technically freeze well, but they will also stick together which would make quite a thick burrito.
My parents always freeze them and I always forget until I’m there trying to make a burrito and it tears in half.
yup. tortillas go in the fridge so you can get individual ones easily. Staleness never really bothered me, but i do warm them up on the stove to improve malleability. And i like to get my burritos a little crispy on the outside to help seal the final fold. Now i want burritos…
This is the way. It’s all I do.
If I’m going to use the bread in the next couple days? I’ll keep it out. Otherwise, I put all my baked goods/bread in the freezer, and extra freezer I bought. Keeps for months. 6+ months if you’re lucky and willing to deal with it being overly dry.
Same. I don’t get why people act like putting bread in the fridge is world ending. Unless your eating a whole loaf of bread in 2 days in the fridge it goes.
That or you get a loaf of mold on the 4th day.
Or lightly toast it? You don’t have to get it crispy to warm it up. It’s better than moldy bread
I had air conditioning growing up and my family tends to make desserts more in the winter.
The first summer living on my own, I made a beautiful blueberry pie, and the next morning I took it out of the microwave (to keep bugs away during the night- I have since learned this was also an idiosyncrasy from my parents. Most people just cover it) and it was already visibly moldy.
I’m glad I got a slice the first day, and I definitely learned a lesson but holy shit was it a surprise.
I had 65% last weekend and since then constantly a bit above 50% in Switzerland. Usually around 30% unless it’s summer. How much is “humid” for you?
Well, yes…but 4 day old bread from the fridge is basically inedible as well because of the bad taste.
I’ve never had my bread get stale from being in the fridge for 4 days. You have to leave it in a bag or airtight container.
Then you probably only ever had bad bread to begin with.
Edit: I suspect all the down-votes are from the US/UK who sadly never tasted good bread fresh from the oven it seems.
My SO got a chuckle out of me because I instinctively put chocolate in the fridge. I grew up in a hot climate but I live in Canada now.
Even when in canada, because cold chocolate below 20°C is cronchier and doesnt melt in your hand as fast.
It changes the taste, though. Like, it’s probably not noticeable for cheap chocolate, as that tastes flat to begin with, but proper chocolate should be kept at room temperature…
I put dark chocolate in the freezer, not for preservation or anything I just love the texture.
Wait, yeah I guess it does make sense that people living in cold climates wouldn’t put chocolate in the fridge. TIL
The reverse is also true sometimes. Coconut “oil” for example is always a solid where I grew up, and it caught me by surprise seeing it actually being sold as a liquid in normal oil bottles.
I really enjoy coconut oil as a rough weather gauge.
I cook with it a lot, but prefer it to be in liquid form for easy measure (which only happens in the warmer bits of summer here), so in winter, I keep a jar of it on top of a particularly warm heat vent.
I keep my place at 60f/15.6c in winter or it costs a fortune to heat. When it’s relatively warm out, the heat doesn’t kick on often enough to melt it, but when it’s real cold/windy the entire thing will be liquid.
I know i’m not the only one prefering chocolate refrigerated (and some variants frozen). Not the creamy type for me.
Lindt with nuts is way crunchier in the freezer.
I keep Reese’s peanut butter cup minis in the freezer when family sends them (not for sale in Japan currently). My wife likes Alfort which are chocolate + biscuit cookies and turned me on to putting those in the freezer. Somehow, it’s much better that way; I didn’t expect the biscuit to be changed or, if so, certainly not better, but it is.
Refrigerating bread slows down mold growth…
This increasing the shelf life.
You don’t have to refrigerate bread. But you can with clear reason.
Mine refuse to refrigerate cheese (other than cream-cheese) and butter. Infuriates me as it gets super oily and rancid real fast.
One of my wife’s friends got persistently sick last year. She just could not get better. Sometimes she’d be fine for a week or two, but then she’d get sick again. Eventually it came down to her needing to document everything she did each day - and they discovered she was getting sick from warm butter.
Turns out her mom had come over at some point and saw that she refrigerated butter and said “you don’t need to do that, it’s so much easier to use when warm and it doesn’t go bad.” Yeah, that’s the case if you eat a stick of butter in a few short days. But you can’t leave it out for more than that or it starts getting filled with all sorts of germs.
Was it unsalted butter? Salted butter can be left out for a while, certainly more than a few days without concern, but unsalted needs to be refrigerated.
For the last few years, I’ve been using butter I leave out in a covered butter dish on the counter since I learned that’s fine. It’s always been a stick of salted butter which I typically finish within 2-3 weeks and that’s never caused any problems. I wonder if it being unsalted would really change things that much…
did she just leave it out uncovered? one of those ceramic dish things with a cover seems to keep it out fine.
I’ve been made fun of for thinking butter tastes/feels off after sitting out on the counter, but it absolutely does. If you want soft butter, take it out like an hour before or soften it with heat and whip it back into a homogeneous mixture. I usually cut a pad and melt it on top of whatever I’m making before spreading it. Anything but leaving it on the counter to go bad…
Cheese is a weird one though. Definitely refrigerate cheese.
They claim cheese needs to “breathe” and apparently that is indeed a thing for some French cheese, but not have it sit unrefrigerated for a few days 😒
Someone tried to convince me to get a heated butter knife. I think I’m seeing their point on it
We got a butter bell, which is the best of both worlds. Room temperature butter kept airtight. Lasts 10-14 days, I’d estimate.
I always thought it was OK to leave salted butter out. Been doing it for years never had a problem I can remember. I also don’t eat tons of butter so would guess I’ve left it out longer than two weeks
This is the first I’ve heard of a butter bell. I’ve been leaving salted butter out for years, but I bought a glass food storage container with a snap on lid that is basically the exact size of a stick of butter. I suppose it’s accomplishing almost the same thing, although a tiny amount of air does get inside especially as the stick is eaten.
If I don’t put my bread in the fridge, it’s moldy within a week. It’s all meant to be toasted anyway.
Clean your cupboards. Mold spores can remain on surfaces for months. Give everything a good wipe-down with some cleaning spray or vinegar solution and then leave the cabinets open to dry out well. And do it again anytime food gets moldy.
Packaged bread should last more than a week, but fresh bread is meant to be eaten within a few days, if not the same day.
I used to live in a desert and bread easily lasted for weeks. Once I moved to what is essentially a rain forest, it doesn’t last more than 5 days. I have to refrigerate it.
Yes, you’re right about the humidity being the biggest factor, and that will also make bread go stale. It also depends on whether it’s prepackaged bread or freshly baked. Prepackaged bread is less likely to arrive with mold spores, and the packaging keeps humidity out during transit and storage. Once it is opened to the humidity, especially in tropical climates, refrigeration will slow any growth.
For people in arid climates, their refrigerator might actually be more humid than their cupboards.
I’m guessing you don’t live somewhere with high heat & humidity, or if you do you run your AC a lot. We keep bread on the counter and in the fridge but not all bread is equally resistant to mold, even some packaged bread. In the winter it’s a lot more forgiving. Also we just open the windows and run fans quite a bit in the summer.
Well with some breads yeah… Its healthier and cheaper than store bought bread so I dont mind