The second life of bread
Day-old loaves find their true calling, and a dad joke to round it all up
When I lived in Amsterdam, in the 90’s, there was a small muffin bakery on one of the canals that sold day-old muffins for about a quarter of the price of the fresh ones. If I had my muffin and coffee there, I’d “splash out” on freshly baked, but whenever I got one (or two) to have at home later, I’d buy the day-old ones. After warming up, they’d come pretty close to how they started off.
Bread is different. It doesn’t revive easily. But, unlike a muffin, it can be turned into all sorts of things. First and foremost… toast.
My favourite spots to pick up bread in London are Kossoffs and Bread By Bike, both conveniently on the way home from work. Which should mean - in theory, at least - that I always have fresh bread sitting on my counter, ready to be eaten more-or-less warm, the way bread is meant to be enjoyed in its first and most excellent incarnation.
It’s just that we rarely finish a loaf before it starts to go stale. Half seems to end up in my freezer: an accumulation of bags at various stages of staleness. There’s a particular guilt I feel when opening the freezer and seeing them there, these once-beautiful things now demoted to the cold and the dark.
Except they’re not too stale. They’ve just moved into their second life.
The French call stale bread pain perdu - lost bread. In English we say “stale” and it sounds terminal. But lost things can be found. It’s a question of knowing where to look.
Medieval cooks built entire dishes around day-old bread: pottages thickened with torn crusts, puddings bound together with soaked crumb, soup foundations. The practical applications are everywhere. Day-old bread makes the best breadcrumbs, the crispest croutons, the most absorptive (Is that a word? Or a tongue twister?) base for bread salads, where lost bread finds its calling by soaking up tomato juices without dissolving into mush. Fresh bread can’t do any of this.
Both of today’s recipes are based on the ability of dehydrated bread to rehydrate itself and, whilst doing so, absorb flavour and become light and unbelievably fluffy and giving, very much like the fresh loaf it started life as. Lost bread… found again.
P.S.
I wanted to come full circle and finish with a relevant muffin reference, but I couldn’t find one. So I’ll end with a dad joke that my kids told me: What did the cupcake say to the icing?.... I’d be muffin without you.
Sorry, boys.
Spinach and feta dumplings in lemon butter
Soft, light, and coated in lemon butter, these dumplings are both comforting and indulgent. Stale sourdough or a crusty baguette give them the structure they need (if you use a soft white loaf, you may need a little more). Make them the day before, if you like, and refrigerate (or freeze) before the cooking stage.
“Cinnamon bun” bread and butter pudding with hazelnut macaroon crust
This bread pudding begins with stale (or fresh) brioche - or white bread, if that’s what you have - dried further in the oven to a rusk-like consistency. It is then soaked in an orange and vanilla custard and spiced with cinnamon and star anise. As it bakes, the edges caramelise while the custard sets just enough to remain soft. The hazelnut crust is made with whipped egg whites to make it crisp, a counterpoint to the soft interior.