Breadcrumbs or bread crumbs are small particles of dry or very dry bread, which are used for breading foods, topping casseroles, stuffing poultry, thickening stews, and adding inexpensive bulk to meatloaves and similar dishes.

Dry breadcrumbs are made from very dry bread, often baked or toasted to remove all remaining moisture, and often have a sandy or even powdery texture. They make for a crisp and crunchy coating for fried foods. The bread used to make soft or fresh bread crumbs is not quite as dry, so the crumbs are larger and produce a softer coating, crust, or stuffing. Bread crumbs are most easily produced by processing slices of bread in a food processor, using a steel blade to make coarse crumbs, or a grating blade to make fine crumbs. A cheese grater or similar tool will also do.

On a Web site, a breadcrumb trail is a navigation tool that allows a user to see where the current page is in relation to the Web site's hierarchy. The term breadcrumb trail comes from the story of Hansel and Gretel, who left a trail of breadcrumbs as they walked through the forest so they could trace their way back home.

See also

• Wiener Schnitzel

Bread crumbs are a website navigation technique. Bread crumbs typically appear horizontally near the top of a webpage, providing links back to each previous page that the user navigates through in order to get to the current page. Basically, they provide a trail for the user to follow back to the starting/entry point of a website and may look something like this:

Home page → Section page → Sub section page

This technique also is referred to as a bread crumb trail.

The technique takes its name from the bread crumb trail left by Hansel and Gretel in the popular fairy tale.

External links

• Breadcrumb Navigation: Further Investigation of Usage by Bonnie Lida Rogers and Barbara Chaparro, 2003
• Influence of Training and Exposure on the Usage of Breadcrumb Navigation by Spring S. Hull, 2004