Why do stale biscuits go soft, but stale cake go hard.?

Question

After all they have much the same ingredients.

Answer 1

There is more air in a cake than a biscuit so the biscuit will go soft but as the air leaves the cake, the cake goes hard

Answer 2

Although both have more or less same ingredients but Cakes have much more percentage of Eggs than biscuits therefore the egg part gets drier quickly with time and makes it hard on the other hand buiscuit absorbs more moisture and becomes soft.

Answer 3

When freshly baked, biscuits are dry and cakes are moist, particularly when compared with the humidity of the room where they are stored. Leave both containers open and they try to match the humidity of the room.

Let use an analogy. You have two cups. One filled with hot tea and the other with cold milk. When you leave them both in a room (uninsulated) for a time they 'try' to match the temperature of the room. You could then argue that the milk is warm and the tea is cold. In fact they are both at room temperature.

Answer 4

I don't know but a Jaffa Cake goes hard so that solves the 'is a Jaffa Cake actually a cake or a biscuit.' debate. Not that anyone here is actually debating it but still...

Answer 5

Biscuits are baked till they have moisture content less than 5% (baked till crispy dry), this makes them hygroscopic ( they absorb moisture), while cake contain high moisture content ( as high as 40%).Because of this if kept uncovered they tend to loose moisture.
Moisture in both cases moves from high moisture to low moisture zone.(biscuits/cake versus Air)

Answer 6

yes

Answer 7

its an ancient paradox...


just like socks become shoes, and shoes turn into socks.

Answer 8

Just to annoy us. Crumbs !