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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There is no heat in microwave oven per se. The microwaves excite the water molecules in the food which causes heat on the inside of the food. That’s why some microwaves safe containers don’t even get warm if you keep them empty in the oven. They only get warm from the heat radiating from the food which got hot from the microwaves exciting the water molecules in it.
A microwave does not produce heat.
A microwave is kind of like a radio, but it broadcasts a frequency that water molecules are very sensitive to. As a result of being “blasted” water molecules wiggle around and produce heat, and that heat created from the water molecules is what heats or cooks the food.
Bread has a decent amount of water, and when you microwave it you are essentially steam cooking the bread. Yes, it will get soggy as a result.
In a toaster, heat is produced by heater elements and the warm air and infrared light blasts the bread. This removes water from the bread in addition to warming/toasting, so you get dry crunchy bread as a result.
Microwave heats up the moisture in the bread and steams it.
Microwaves don’t emit heat, they emit invisible rays that make things warm. Toasters emit heat
Microwaves heat up water molecules all around, basically steam from the inside (they cook the outside too, but less water is on the edges vs the center).
Toasters/ovens use heat, which dries out/evaporates the water from the outside.
Microwave it for long enough it will definitely be crispy. Just gotta get all that pesky water out of there.
One is heating the air, the other is heating the moisture.
Personally, I love the [Pizzazz Pizza oven](https://www.amazon.com/Presto-03430-Pizzazz-Plus-Rotating/dp/B00005IBXJ), I can put what I was going to put on it, ghee, butter, whatever, and put it for a certain time, and if I miss the end, it’s still going to be in the cooldown phase keeping it warm for longer than a toaster. Larger counter space, but so many uses.
When you heat bread in the toaster, the dry heat removes moisture and makes it crispy. A microwave, on the other hand, uses microwaves to heat the water inside the bread, turning it into steam. This steam gets trapped inside, making the bread soft and floppy instead of crispy. So, a toaster makes bread crispy by drying it out, while a microwave makes it floppy by steaming it from the inside
Microwaves vibrate the water in food really fast to make it heat up. Toasters cook by applying heat to the bread, drying it out and making it crispy. The faster molecules move, the more energy they put out – that energy can be emitted in a handful of ways, but usually a lot of heat and light (which is why the coils in your toaster glow when they heat up!)
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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