Breakfast toast

[D4\/!d]

I like a slice of toast with/for my breakfast :)

I never seem to get it evenly golden brown all over. It's either burnt at the edges (I don't like charred toast, yuk) or a patchy white & yellow and untoasted.

I've tried various toasters. That is, ordinary toasters costing £20--£50, not the Dualit/Siemens Porsche price range.

I tried using the grill on the cooker. Takes ages to warm up for just one slice, and is prolly not cost effective.

Nothing gives me a nice slice.

How do you do your toast...

[artist]

This is similar to mine - didn't pay the earth but not sure it came from Argos...........

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/part...57.Toasters.htm

Excellent!

I like my toast a bit burnt especially with tomatoes on.

[-pops-]

I like my toast to be dark, on the edge of being charcoal. Done under my grill on the cooker (gas).

Toasting machines are useless as far as I'm concerned. I don't eat plastic bread of the shape these machines are designed for so my slices never properly fit into the slot and end up anaemic on the bits that stick out or lost forever in the workings.

[AlanHo]

The best toast can be found at the end of a toasting fork held in front of a roaring log fire.

Kitchen electric toasters are useless - as pops says they are designed for toasting commercial sliced bread and are incapable of dealing with any variations in thickness or overall shape. On most of the cheaper ones, the heating elements are spaced well apart which leads to uneven toasting.

I have a Panasonic combination grill/oven/microwave. The grill heats up more quickly than the one in my cooker and the fact that the bread is rotated on the turntable makes the toasting more even. Still takes a fair time though and after one experiment I have never used this method again because we share 4 slices at breakfast and it is easier to use the cooker grill.

Another reason for toast to be done to a crisp at the edges and be pale in the middle is when the bread has started to go stale and dry out. The edges dry first and as a result brown more quickly. However- like others here - I like the taste of carbon and enjoy a crunchy black crust around a dark golden middle liberally spread with best English salted butter.

[Irene]

I like my toast to be dark, on the edge of being charcoal. Done under my grill on the cooker (gas). Toasting machines are useless as far as I'm concerned. I don't eat plastic bread of the shape these machines are designed for so my slices never properly fit into the slot and end up anaemic on the bits that stick out or lost forever in the workings.

We agree about plastic bread.

However, if you trim off the 'ears' on real bread so that they fit into the toaster, it's just great.

Our local Robin loves the trims. He/She sits very close when we are gardening.

Today, he/she sat on the fence, mower & patio, within inches from where we were working.

So, just buy the real bread and trim off the excess for the birdies. :D

[-pops-]

Unfortunately it's not only the ears of the bread but the heads as well. My normal loaf is a Farmhouse which has a large domed top - far too tall to conveniently fit in a toaster without being beheaded.

Regarding the birds, I'm a very keen feeder of birds and I keep a 25Kg sack of mixed seed wild bird food under the stairs - as well as feeding ends of loaves and other suitable kitchen waste.

[catgate]

You must have some very tame birds, pops. Our robins are very wary, either of me or each other. They will only come within about ten feet of me. How you have got them tame enough to go under your stairs for food is quite baffling.

[-pops-]

There used to be a squirrel that came in the house and there's one now that sits on the windowsill sometimes.

[artist]

Back to the toast - my grill on the oven hasn't worked for ages - I am about to get a new cooker - such disruption in the kitchen though.........

My microwave grill is good but at only one slice per go it's a long-winded operation.

Like Irene, I use the trimmings for the birds.

We had a robin a couple of years ago who would fly through the patio doors, sit on the chair, we'd have a little chat and off he'd go. Never had one like that before or since.

I feed the birds regularly so thay are all a bit tame. They sit waiting when I'm having breakfast until the guilt sets in and I HAVE to feed them.

[Irene]

Unfortunately it's not only the ears of the bread but the heads as well. My normal loaf is a Farmhouse which has a large domed top - far too tall to conveniently fit in a toaster without being beheaded.

We buy Farmhouse too. I just lightly toast, then turn over top to bottom and very lightly toast again. A bit of a fiddle, but worth it. :D

We had a robin a couple of years ago who would fly through the patio doors, sit on the chair, we'd have a little chat and off he'd go. Never had one like that before or since.

We were doing some tidying up in the garden yesterday and our local robin was in full attendance.

Sitting on the mower, hopping around under the bush I was working on.

At one point, he/she flew from one side of the garden to the other, almost landing on Mike's shoulder.

I felt obliged to go in and fetch some bread. He (the robin not Mike :lol: ) kept looking at us very meaningfully with a beady eye, his head cocked to one side .

By the way D4\/!d, our toaster is a four slice Tefal Hi-speed Avanti. It works just fine, but as -pops- says, it (like most toasters) assumes that you use the square slices of 'plastic' bread. :D

[Watchful]

I'm the same as most of you. I use an electric toaster, for the speed, but it only takes the regular sized slices; anything else gets stuck and causes a hasty pressing of buttons to eject said lump of charcoal

Any surplus edges/corners are eaten by our dog who thinks they are manna from heaven but he feels the same way about anything edible, or inedible come to that :lol:

I long to have an open fire again and still have a toasting fork.

[andsome]

What a load of fuss about toast. :lol: :lol: I make my own bread, and if the toast is uneven I don't worry about it. Regarding bird food, Try here. Their supermix is extremely economical, with probably the lowest waste that we have ever had from bird food. The sunflower content is de husked, and the mix contains a variety of other foods that the birds queue up for.

[-pops-]

Thanks for the bird food link, andsome. I have been buying from eBay but the prices on there have increased enormously - Haiths is a lot cheaper now.

[Watchful]

We buy split peanuts for our bird feeder from a local shop and they disappear very fast

[andsome]

Thanks for the bird food link, andsome. I have been buying from eBay but the prices on there have increased enormously - Haiths is a lot cheaper now.

A good company to deal with. :D I recommend them to anyone.

[artist]

We buy split peanuts for our bird feeder from a local shop and they disappear very fast

So do sunflower kernels! Thay are a bit expensive but we get a good class of bird.

:)

I also put out the cheapest currants - economy abot 45p pack - the blackbirds go mad for them.

[Watchful]

That's a good idea artist. I'll try some currants as we haven't many blackbirds.

They'll prefer those to toast :D

[andsome]

We buy split peanuts for our bird feeder from a local shop and they disappear very fast

So do sunflower kernels! Thay are a bit expensive but we get a good class of bird.

:)

I also put out the cheapest currants - economy abot 45p pack - the blackbirds go mad for them.

The super mix from Haiths, not only contains sunflower kernels, but several other foods including finely chopped peanuts. It satisfies a good range of birds, and many of them get down onto thew ground to clear up any that has fallen. It is therefore extremely economical. Give it a try., it's much more nutritious than burnt toast. :D

[-pops-]

I have a large patch of pyracantha (firethorn) which is excellent for keeping cats away from my garden (very sharp thorns) and it gets laden with loads of bright red berries at this time of year which keep the blackbirds happy right through the winter.

[Watchful]

I also have a large Pyracantha but, unfortunately, the tits strip the flower buds off before they develop into berries. It varies each year. Last year it was full of berries but this year, after great-tits nested in our garden, there are hardly any berries to be seen. Still, it has provided food for the birds in one way or another.

[Scarthy © ® ™]

You can't beat toast done on a coal fire if you ask me ! Red hot embers and a long fork to do it with (to save the hairs on your arms). A few seconds either side and proper butter on it ! We don't have coal anymore but some relatives still do. :) <--- "When I was a lad..." ;)