I made a toaster waffle for myself this morning. Growing impatient, I popped it out before it was all the way done. As I was buttering it, I noticed parts of the waffle were still cold. Since there was already butter and syrup on it, I couldn’t put it back in the toaster. I threw it in the microwave for 20 seconds and it came out floppy instead of crispy. What gives?
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microwave ovens put out light energy in a very specific wavelength/frequency range. this range was chosen because water molecules respond surprisingly well to it while other molecules, not so much in comparison. microwaves also penetrate deep so even water in the core of the food gets some heating. so for a small amount of energy, you can do wonders in the kitchen very quickly.
but because the microwave oven is designed around the properties of water, you have to understand that it is more like a steamer rather than a radiant oven. additionally it steams the food with its own water rather than from the outside.
this is completely opposite to what you want in crispy food. steaming a waffle from the inside necessarily creates a soggy waffle. it’s not necessarily the case you will always end up with soggy food, as you can avoid that by lowering the power and increasing the duration –anyway, just adjust the settings to prevent the internal water content of the waffle from boiling–that’s what causes sogginess. but there is no setting to make crispy waffle.
when you crisp things up, the inside just needs to the warm, and the outside, far hotter than 100C to rid it of all moisture. you just cant get that effect from a microwave oven (remember, water is preferentially heated in a microwave oven, and water will not allow anything around it to rise above 100C before itself is allowed to boil off). what you can do is take a frozen waffle and thaw it with the microwave oven. then move it to a radiant oven and blast it from the outside for a short moment.
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