How To Make Your Bread Crust Softer With One Simple Ingredient

The best breads come soft and fluffy, with pillowy interiors best accompanied by slabs of warm butter. Compared to that ideal bread texture, however, crust tends to get the short end of the stick. After all, there's a reason why so many kids like to eat around a bread's edges; a loaf's crust often comes hard, stale, and crunchy, and is far less desirable than the carb's cloud-like inside. Yet while crust surely gets a bad rap, its crisp and hard texture doesn't have to be the norm. Rather, you can ensure a softer crust by incorporating one particular ingredient into your baking process: butter.

Butter not only improves the taste of your bread but can also salvage its texture. That's because the baking mainstay, as a form of fat, helps a bread's dough rise while it's baking in the oven. When brushed on the dough's outside, it likewise adds moisture, resulting in a softer, less intense crust. So, whether you're baking French bread or a variety specifically for sandwiches, use a coating of melted butter to improve your crust.

When it comes to baking bread, you don't have to settle for a subpar texture — even if your bread has finished baking and seems to have passed the point of no return. To revive your loaf, melt some butter. Then, use a baking brush – like this one by OXO on Amazon — to overlay the bread with the fat. Note that this technique works best if the bread has just finished baking and is still warm and cooling from the oven. Such timing allows the butter to soften your crust and can counteract the hardness of your solidifying loaf.

If you're out of butter, there's no need to panic or work around your crust. Rather, there are other, similar methods to soften your loaf's outsides, whether you're taking a preemptive measure or doing damage control once your bread has finished baking. If you're making sourdough bread, for instance, you can try using moist paper towels to ensure a less severe texture. The water from the towel will make the most of your delicious homemade loaf and allow you to maximize its potential. Who knows? You may even come to favor a bread's crust.