ABSTRACT
Freshly baked bread can be easily recognized by its sensory attributes: crisp crust, soft crumb, and appealing aroma. The starch granules of the crumb are swollen and deformed but still recognizable on microscopic inspection, because their swelling is limited by the deficiency of water. The bread-making process including the dough recipe, the method of mixing and proofing, and the thermal history of the dough during baking, can significantly affect staling. Bread staling has been the subject of a number of studies to obtain an understanding of its intrinsic mechanism and thereby modify dough recipes to increase shelf life. Lipids affect loaf volume and produce a significant anti-staling effect. Non-starch polysaccharides, like arabinoxylans and arabinogalactans, which are often bound to a protein moiety, are also believed to have an anti-staling effect. The viscosity of the inter-phases, which is expected to significantly depend on temperature, would therefore play a major role in bread staling and in the refreshing of stale bread.
