With most people stuck at home during the coronavirus pandemic, they are unleashing their creative side, especially on TikTok.
Over the past few months, the video-sharing app has been providing all sorts of hacks for how to cook and store food. The latest one shows you how to keep bread sealed and fresh for longer.
Emily Arnold, who posts under the username @emilyyyarn, shared a short video showing how she seals bread to maintain its freshness, and it is pretty genius.
Arnold twists the top of a half-empty bread bag tightly and then folds the open end down over the twist and the loaf. The caption of the video reads: “I was today years old when I learned this from my friend.”
@emilyyyarn Learn something new everyday #lifehacks
♬ I'm So Pretty - chunkymonkeeyy
The video has received more than 3 million views.
Many users shared how impressed they were with the hack, with one commenting: “I learn more from TikTok than any classes I’ve ever taken in school,” while another user simply wrote: “Mind blown.”
Other users expressed their surprise that this method is not more well-known with one user commenting: “You guys haven’t done this your whole life?”
According to WikiHow, below are other ways of storing bread the right way. The site reports that the best way to keep bread at its best is to keep it at room temperature for a day or two, then wrap it and freeze it for longer-term storage, and when you thaw it and heat it, it will taste freshly baked again.
Wrap bread in plastic or aluminium foil
These types of wrappings will trap in the bread's natural moisture to keep it from drying out and getting hard. If your bread came in paper wrapping, toss it out and wrap it in plastic or aluminium for storage.
Keep bread at room temperature for no more than two days
The room temperature should be around 20ºC. Keep it away from direct sunlight in a cool and dry place, such as in your pantry or a bread box.
Freeze extra bread
If you have more bread than you can consume before it goes stale within a few days, the best way to store it is by freezing. Freezing bread drops the temperature enough to stop the starch in the bread from recrystallising and getting stale.
Don't put bread in the refrigerator
Scientific studies have shown that this draws out the moisture and the bread becomes stale three times faster than it would at room temperature. This happens from a process known as "retrogradation", which means the starch molecules crystallise and the bread gets tough.