Put a glass of water in the microwave with your sandwich and the steam from the water will moisturize the sandwich while being heated in the microwave. You have to make sure its a glass or a glass/ceramic mug. Not a plastic cup or something that can melt with the heat, Hope this helps!
If you heat bread in the microwave longer than 10 - 15 seconds the hot parts will go hard as it cools. Set your rolls on the counter to get to room temp then microwave for 10 seconds and give up to 5 seconds longer if not warm enough.
1. Keep it moist – We lightly moisten a paper towel or regular kitchen towel and lay it directly on the surface of the bread. 2. Keep it covered – Then we cover the whole thing with another paper towel or kitchen towel.
Add Moisture: To keep things from drying out, place a small cup of water in the microwave alongside the pizza or bread. The steam will help maintain moisture. Cover with a Damp Paper Towel: Lightly cover the food with a damp paper towel. This can help retain moisture and prevent rubberiness.
Microwaving dries meat by removing water; microwaving bread does the same thing, which is why a slice of bread - or dinner roll or tortilla - will become tough and chewy if overheated for even 5 seconds. Most restaurants do not have microwaves. Those that do, refer to the microwave as ``Chef Mike''.
foil. Storing bread in either plastic, cloth, or foil helps retain the loaf's moisture. This moisture retention is a plus when it comes to the bread's crumb (interior) — but a minus if you're talking crunchy-crispy crust, since wrapping bread will inevitably soften its crust as well as its crumb.
When one of those sugar molecules reaches 212 degrees Fahrenheit, it melts, which softens it. This is why bread can actually feel soft and fluffy when it first comes out of the microwave. But then when it cools, that molecule recrystallizes and hardens, causing the bread to become chewy and hard.
Stale Bread Method: Dampen, Wrap in Aluminum Foil, Reheat at 300°F. This is the approach The Spruce Eats recommends for bringing back stale bread — dampen under the faucet, wrap the whole loaf in foil, and reheat for 15 minutes in a 300°F oven.
To guard against dried-out microwave fare, I place a small glass filled with 2 or 3 ounces of tap water in the microwave before firing it up.
Bread isn't dangerous to microwave, but it doesn't taste great! Microwaving heats bread from the inside out, so you miss out on the nice crunchy exterior you get from toasting. Plus, microwaving bread re-gelatinizes the starch in the dough, giving it an unpleasant soft and chewy texture.
Use plastic wrap: If you avoid using aluminum foil, you may use plastic wrap. Simply wrap them in a couple of sheets of plastic wrap, overlapping them slightly to keep air out. This will keep the bread soft and fresh for a long .
Over-kneading has a tendency to result in chewy bread. Here's how to tell if you've kneaded enough. Another possibility—you used bread flour when all-purpose flour would do. If a recipe with bread flour turned out chewier than you like, try it with all-purpose and knead only as much as the recipe directs.
Back in the day, this was accomplished with a bread box, but most people don't have bread boxes anymore (or even the counter space to store them). A microwave does a good job of replicating the bread box, keeping air out and maintaining a constant temperature and humidity level.
But over time, the starches undergo retrogradation, meaning the starch granules give back some of their water, as it works its way to the surface of the loaf and evaporates. As this happens, the starches partially revert to their crystalline structure, which causes the bread to become hard and brittle.
Therefore, the water inside the bread heats ups and evaporates in less than seconds. This evaporation then transforms to steam and surrounds the bread. The result? A soggy and unpleasant chewiness.
This happens because the microwave boils away some of the water. The escaping steam pushes the starches into a denser structure, and leaves the bread dry. Slow heating in small increments can reduce this effect, but it's difficult to find a sweet spot that's still hot enough to soften the bread.
The first step to heating bread in the microwave is to make sure there is an added element of moisture to prevent the bread from drying out and to keep it from becoming chewy. This can be done by getting a moist piece of paper towel or a kitchen towel to cover the bread in the microwave.
You can't turn stale bread back into fresh bread completely, obviously, but you can get pretty close with a paper towel and a microwave. Simply spray the paper towel with a good amount of water (you want it damp) and then wrap you bread in it, and microwave for 15–20 seconds.
The water in the paper or kitchen towel will retain the bread's moisture, but microwaving it with too much heat or too long will zap the moisture right back out.
Add moisture.
Brush or spritz water all over the bread. Use more if the loaf is very dry and/or has a thick crust. Use less if the loaf has a thin crust or just needs a little pick-me-up. I've actually run the crust of a stale loaf directly under the faucet for a brief second without the bread getting soggy.
Some people swear by beeswax wraps to store bread. Abeego, a Canadian manufacturer of beeswax wraps, did a side-by-side comparison of artisanal loaves wrapped in a paper bag and a beeswax wrap. At the end of a week, the bread in paper was rock hard and the bread in beeswax was still soft.
Hydrocolloids can retain moisture in the bread. This is important because moisture plays a crucial role in the freshness and softness of bread. By holding onto water, hydrocolloids help prevent the bread from drying out too quickly, thus maintaining its moistness for longer.