The purpose of resting the bread after taking out of oven?

Question

What is the rationale behind resting(let it sit on a rake before cutting it open) the bread for a while, sometimes for hours, after baking it? Thanks.

Answer 1

The purpose to resting bread is really to allow it to cool AND allow it to finish the baking process. Certain recipes require the bread to rest for 8 hours! Also, steaming hot bread will usually squish if you try to cut it. Use a nice serrated knife when you do cut.

............... If the recipe says to rest the bread.. rest it!

Answer 2

Resting is usually recommended for loaf breads. This allows the wheat starches to fully gelatinize and firm up.
When you pull it straight out of the oven, the bread is "full of steam" and the wheat startches are still "loosey goosey" using a techincal term... lol.

By allowing the bread to cool, the moisture is either vented off or reabsorbed into the starches.

Why the rest?
So the bread will but better instead of bunching up and forming little balls when you try cutting it.

If you don't care about cutting the bread and you're ripping or "breaking" bread, then dive right in. Butter will melt a lot faster. Nothing like freshly baked rolls straight out of the oven!

Answer 3

Allowing the bread to rest lets it firm up and in the case of sourdough bread it allows the sour flavor sour. fresh hot sourdough bread right out of the oven is not sour it tastes sweet.

Answer 4

To let it cool off, and in doing so, the bread's structure firms up so it can be sliced w/o squashing it.

Answer 5

When it cools, it holds it s shape better and is easier to handle. Trust me, wait.

Answer 6

I think the best example of this would be in the original "American Pie" movie.

www.thesevenyearplan.com

Answer 7

initially it allows it to slowly stop cooking
and allowing the loaf to firm up for slicing.....
??
IDK