I do not own a toaster/toast maker. I do not eat bread often enough to make it worth it to get a toaster. On the occasions that I do want toast, I brown the bread on a tawah or in a cast iron skillet. Bread lovers know that there is nothing quite as delicious and satisfying as hot crusty toast, spread with butter that melts as it makes contact with the surface of the bread. Just as you finish buttering the first slice, you can’t resist biting into it as you set about buttering the other slice, or slices. Such is the allure of toast with butter. However, have you ever considered the amount of butter we spread on our toast?
Before you get ready to rebel, hear me out; I am not here to admonish you, we’re just talking.
With a toaster, there is only one option for buttering the bread – after it has been toasted. However, because I only have access to a tawah or skillet, I have a couple of options when it comes to adding butter to my bread – before it is toasted or after it has been toasted. It is in these two processes that I realized how much more butter I was adding to one toast than the other. Let me explain.
There are times when I can’t wait for the butter to come to room temperature to spread on the bread, so I’d take little pats of butter and add them to a cold tawah or skillet and when melted, I’d place the bread directly on the melted butter, moving it around to coat the surface. This process uses the least amount of butter and you get the added flavour of nutty brown butter as the bread crisps and the butter browns with the bread. This is the toasting method I tend to use most often.
The other way that I toast the bread is to spread room temperature butter on the bread and then add it to a heated tawah/skillet. Now, because the bread is fresh and soft, it does not take a lot of butter to cover the surface, but it definitely needs more butter. Here, you got a really nice, light-brown toast with hints of gold from the melted butter. If you leave it on long enough, the edges pick up some of that brown butter flavour.
So far. So good.
Well, the other day I decided that I wanted to toast the bread first, as is traditionally done in a toaster. I had visions of the butter melting on the toast directly into the crumb, glistening; the aroma of sweet cream mixed with the fragrance of toast, making me weak. I used my trusted tawah (the skillet would have been fine too) but my 13-inch tawah meant that I could toast 3 to 4 slices of bread at one time. By the way, 2 slices of toast may be a standard serving but it is never enough, I am just saying. Three slices are more like it (laugh). Anyway, I buttered the first slice and found myself, taking about 3 good pats of butter to spread it on the toast to butter it (not generously), just so that the butter covered the entire surface. By the time I had finished buttering the 3 slices of toast, I was surprised at how little butter was left in the butter dish. I was shocked when I realized how much more butter was added to the bread after it has been toasted. I am not kidding. Try it and tell me. It makes sense though; think about it – the soft surface of the bread with its open crumb will easily be saturated with little pats of soft butter. However, after it has been toasted, the surface of the bread shrinks and tightens, therefore, in order for it to be pleasingly edible, the butter when added (particularly when the toast is hot or very warm), relaxes the crumb creating tiny little pockets into which the butter melts and sits. Toast is dry; it needs more butter to make it tender and edible.
This revelation came as a surprise to me and I felt a little self-conscious as I devoured the toast. However, I quickly consoled myself that it was perfectly fine to indulge because it is not something that I do every day or every week for that matter. I have toast infrequently, and maybe that is a good thing.
Now all toast lovers are going to hate me.
Cynthia
cynthia@tasteslikehome.org
