use a toaster-oven, butter one or both sides. Toast all at one time.
Alternatively butter one side of bread, place on baking sheet and insert in oven under broiler until it reaches the golden brown color desired. Repeat for other side if desired.
Make it the way my friend’s wife did for the first two or three years they were married.
He called one day to ask if I could fix their pop up toaster as it was giving them trouble. Visited his house a day or so later and examind toaster. His wife had been generously buttering slices of bread BEFORE toasting. The bottom of the toaster had a mass of butter and crumbs baked into a solid mess which finallly prevented the next piece from staying down to toast. A thorough cleaning solved the problem with the electric toaster. The toastmistress was now ready to change her ways and butter the toast AFTER toasting. She convinced me she really thought that you were supposed butter the bread before toasting.
It depends what you are looking for. I butter the toast after the bread has been toasted. This is a nice crispy treat. However, for garlic toast I like to butter the bread before toasting, maybe adding a bit of grated parmasean, it turns out more chewy that way.
You butter both sides?
Lightly toasted, so that it’s only just starting to go yellow, I butter one side, and put a… … moderate coating of marmite on it.
Pardon my Yankee ignorance. What is the “marmite” you refer to?
Orange Marmalade perhaps?
Dictionary.com says:
1. A large covered earthenware or metal cooking pot.
2. A small covered earthenware casserole designed to hold an individual serving
2. A petite marmite.
Mmm, no. It’s a fermented yeast paste, high in B-vitamins and stuff, made from the leftover yeast involved in brewing beer. It tastes rather salty and tangy. You might have heard of Vegemite - same general idea, tastes similar but not the same.
Well, when I grew up, my mom would butter both sides.
But as a grownup, I’m lazier and not so picky, so I just butter one side.
It’s also important to note that it’s important to start with softened, room-temperature butter. If the butter is hard, it will shred your toast before it softens enough to spread.
If you forgot to take enough butter out beforehand, don’t microwave it to soften it… you will have cold hard butter with voids of melted butter inside.
Instead, get a small, sharp unserrated knife, and slice very thin slices of butter and lay them in a single layer on a plate before starting your toast. By the time the toast is done, these thin pats of butter will have warmed to room temp and be spreadable.
I just watched the Toast episode of Good Eats last nite and can’t wait to try both the Bruschetta and the Pain Perdu!
Here I was foolishly living my life in the mistaken belief that you can only butter toast one way, and then you weirdos come along and tell me that you have whole different approaches to this act.
In my 35+ years of eating toast (and man, do I love toast!) I have only ever heard of toasting it first and then buttering one side only. I like my toast crunchy and I think buttering it first would make it soggy. The only time I ever heard of buttering first was as in the aforementioned garlic bread.
I have the Maytag Gemini range with the two ovens. The top one is smaller and has a toast setting. It makes the best damn toast I’ve ever had.
You can butter or not butter your toast as you see fit.
One side, or both sides, before or after toasting.
If you prefer not to have slick fingers, toast a slice of bread, cut in half across or on the diagonal, open the center to make pockets to put butter in.
As the farmer said when he kissed the cow:
“Every man to his own taste”
If your location field is, in fact, Knoxville, TN (I’ve been known to assume things in the past, then learn that I was wrong), you can get Marmite at The Fresh Market in Western Plaza on Kingston Pike. It runs about $5 for a small jar.
First you butter the cat’s back, then you tie the dry toast to the cat, then you toss the assemblage into the air, which results in not only buttered toast, but an anti-gravikitty device.
Whoops, I forgot to note that you have to flip the toast around after it is on the cat so that the butter side is up . Guess I’m a pretty poor cat butterer.
See, I’ve tried to make toast by buttering it, then putting it under the broiler. I end up with soggy hot bread with burnt edges. Will someone please tell me what I’m doing wrong? I’d love to have hot crispy buttery Texas toast with my spaghetti.
I toast my bread till it’s light golden-brown, then use softened butter on one side. Sometimes I spread kaya on it after the butter. (Kaya is a coconut egg jam that I’m absolutely addicted to.)
…this reminds me that we’re all out of bread. And kaya. Perhaps also butter.
Am I to understand from this thread that pop-up toasters are not the norm in the US? I always figured they were, purely based on the fact that Jon had one in the Garfield strips (one of my early references as far as American domestic life is concerned…)
To actually make Texas toast, you might just want to butter the bread and dump it butter side down on a hot skillet like you would a grilled cheese sandwich.
