Before Throwing Away Empty Coffee Cans, Try Baking Bread

Although glass jars and paper bags filled with coffee beans are more common now than they were before, metal cans remain one of the best packaging materials to store coffee in. But, what do you do when the coffee has run out and you're left with an empty can? Before throwing it in the recycling bin, it might be worth thinking about another use for it. In fact, you don't have to as we've already thought of it.

You can use coffee cans to bake bread! No, this isn't a new hack made famous by a viral TikTok video. Coffee cans have been used to make bread since the early 20th century when people would use creative ways to repurpose things and stretch tight budgets. Rather than buying separate baking pans, it was found that the food-grade cans that coffee grounds came in were actually excellent molds to bake bread in. This method was so popular that bread baked in coffee cans came to have a name of its own: They're called coffee can bread.

Baking bread in coffee cans can be fun, easy, and actually quite handy. If you don't like bread crusts, for example, coffee cans will be a savior. Bread baked in a coffee can has only a small layer of crust and most of it is the slice of muffin top that rises out of the can. Everything else inside can be sliced into perfectly round discs that are spongy pieces of bread with very little crust.

Delishably explains that coffee can bread recipes like theirs don't involve any kneading either and the bread dough is left to rise just once. Even then, dough rising in a coffee can is a fun experiment to involve kids in because the lid of the coffee can will suddenly pop open once the bread has rested and risen enough before being ready to be popped in the oven.

The only thing to be mindful of, however, is to check whether the coffee can that you have is safe to bake in or not. The materials that cans are made of can sometimes release toxic chemicals when left under heat (via Medicine Net). Additionally, some cans may be lined with Bisphenol-A or BPA which is another toxic chemical that seeps into the food inside when heated. As long as your cans don't have a liner and are safe to be baked in, coffee cans are an old but effective way to bake puffy bread.