I assume it has something to do with the toast changing the temperature of the air around it, and the air’s ability to hold moisture changing, in turn. But if I’m remembering my mediocre science education correctly, hot air can hold more humidity, so is it caused by the displacement of the (relatively) cool air around the toast, losing its humidity? I’m perplexed.
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Neat question but –
Bread does contain a fair bit of water as moisture BUT it also chemically binds water into it’s starch molecules as it ages. So for example, stale bread isn’t just “dry bread”, it’s bread that’s had it’s water combined with starch molecules, which changes the properties of the bread into what we call “stale”.
Have you ever wondered why lightly toasted bread seems to become *unstale*? That’s because the heat of toasting breaks the water out of the starch and returns to being moisture in the bread, making it soft and fresh again.
So your mechanism is correct, the hot bread is releasing water and it’s condensing on the colder plate. The condensation also accumulates instead of evaporating because it can’t evaporate, there’s a piece of toast on top of it.
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