Tried a wet paper towel trick for bread crust

I always hated how my homemade sandwich bread got a rock-hard crust after cooling. Someone on a baking forum said to put a damp paper towel over the loaf while it cools. Tried it yesterday on a white bread batch and the crust stayed soft all day. Never going back to just leaving it on the counter uncovered. Anyone else use weird tricks to fix basic bread issues?

3 comments

3 Comments

rubyk862mo ago

Started putting a damp towel over my cinnamon rolls once and they stayed soft for two days straight.

nguyen.tara2mo ago

Never thought a damp towel would actually work without making the bread soggy. Tried it on sourdough last week and man it kept the crust chewable, not hard. Can't believe I've been letting loaves just dry out all these years.

diana201mo ago

@rubyk86 i never thought of trying this on cinnamon rolls but that makes total sense since they dry out so fast. one thing nobody's mentioned yet is the science behind it - the paper towel traps steam but lets just enough moisture escape so the crust doesn't get hard or soggy. i actually tried the opposite trick once where i put a DRY towel over my loaf and it still helped a little but not as good as damp. the key is wringing it out really well so it's barely damp, not dripping wet.