On Food and Cooking

time and settle. A kind of settling and
strengthening also takes place among the
starch molecules in bread, but these have
toughening effects that are undesirable, at
least for bread to be eaten fresh. Stale
toughened bread does have its uses (see
box, p. 542).
The majority of starch molecules, the
branched amylopectins within the granul, also
retrograde. But thanks to their irregular
structure, they form crystalline regions and
expel water much more slowly, over the
course of several days. This is the process
responsible for the undesirable firming in
texture after the bread has become sliceable.
For some reason, both the rate and the extent
of staling are lower in lighter, less dense
breads.
Certain emulsifying agents have been
found to retard staling substantially and for
this reason have been added to mass-produced
bread doughs for about 50 years. True