Restore Soft Biscuits to Crispy Ones

Alas! The batch of cookies I made for a Christmas party this weekend had gone soft. I have been wondering how to restore their crispiness as a layer of royal icing on them complicates matters. Previous times, I just popped them into the oven for a couple of minutes and then let them cool on a wire rack. However, the royal icing on this batch of cookies makes this method unusable. It just will not do for the cookies to be crispy again only to end up with a messed-up blob of watery icing on its top.

So when I chanced upon this method, I was eager to give it a try and…it really works!

This method requires some care to calibrate the amount of microwave time required to warm the biscuits/crisps etc rather than overheat them, but once this has been established, the process is repeatable.

I am told that this same technique works for potato chips and other crispy snacks too. Do note that for items that have fillings or coatings that melt under high heat (such as chocolate or jam biscuits), take extra care to limit the heating such that it does not melt the filling/coating. Instead, more cycles of the process can be applied.


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Method

1. Get several cold ceramic dinner plates by putting them into the refrigerator for a couple of minutes.

2. Put a few of the soft biscuits on a plate and put it in the microwave oven. Give it a blast for just long enough to warm up the biscuits but not cook them.

3. Take the plate out of the oven and transfer the warmed biscuits onto a cold ceramic plate. What happens is the moisture in the biscuits evaporates without boiling and then condenses on the cold surface of the plate.

4. Transfer the biscuits onto another cold plate. Dry the first plate, and repeat the process a few times. After several cycles of the process, the biscuits will be dry and crispy.