Why does bread get hard after a while, but cookies become soft?
In: Chemistry
What kind of cookies do you eat???
Going soft??
Where do you store them?
Curious minds want to know!
Moisture content.
Bread will lose moisture to the atmosphere and so become hard whereas a cookie (biscuit to us brits) will absorb moisture out of the atmosphere and become soft.
That’s why a jaffa cake is a cake.
Edit: OK, OK! I made the mistake of thinking it was the same process for bread as it is for cake! Enough with the corrections! Lol
I think I need to question any observation that says cookies don’t dry out and get hard over time.
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It’s all about equilibrium of moisture. Pretty much every automatically naturally “wants” to equalize and moisture is now different. So things that are dry will absorb moisture and become soft or soggy if they are exposed to normal air that has more moisture. Things that have more moisture than the air will lose that moisture and become drier and harder.
My wife puts a slice of bread in the chocolate chip cookies she makes it keeps them moist longer. She got that from my mother
Cookies with a high oil content might go soft, and these are designed with a higher oil content specifically to not go stale, but ordinary ones tend to go hard.
Oil doesn’t evaporate as easily as water and bread has a high water content, but little or no oil, so the water evaporates more easily than the oil. The water also emulsifies with the water in cookies, so keeping it more moist.
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