Whether buttered, slathered with jam or covered in beans or cheese, we’re a nation of toast lovers – but now, it’s been revealed you’re likely eating the breakfast wrong.
Homam Ayaso, Head of Tasty UK, told the Daily Mail how people can avoid their bread going ‘soggy’ once it’s been toasted.
He suggested standing your toast upright and ‘letting it breathe’, adding: ‘Yes, it looks faintly absurd. A lone slice propped against the butter dish looks like it’s waiting to be interviewed, but the logic is sound.
‘Flat toast traps steam underneath, and steam is basically just soggy on a countdown. Stand it up, let the air get at both sides, and you’ve got crunch that actually survives the journey to the table.’
However, he added: ‘That said, not all toast is created equal. White bread genuinely needs this more, it holds more moisture and surrenders to sogginess embarrassingly fast.
‘Sourdough, on the other hand, is naturally denser and quietly smug about it; it holds its structure without any coaxing.
‘So if you’re a sourdough person, you can skip the whole ritual and spend that time doing something more useful.’
But Homam warned that the ‘standing method assumes you want your toast to cool down’, adding: ‘So, stand the toast up if you’re using white bread and you’re easily distracted. But if you’re eating immediately, butter it while it’s hot.’
Homam Ayaso, Head of Tasty UK, told the Daily Mail how people can avoid their bread going ‘soggy’ once it’s been toasted (stock photo)
Meanwhile, it’s not only toast that we can’t get enough of, as in 2024, 233,000 tonnes of butter were consumed in Britain alone, while sales of blocks of butter increased by six per cent.
But these days it’s not just salted or unsalted we’re spreading on our bread. Flavoured butter is the ingredient du jour among discerning home cooks and trendy chefs, with all the leading supermarkets bringing out their own weird and wonderful flavours.
From savoury options – such as garlic and herb or smoked paprika – to sweet blends, like chocolate, cinnamon bun and even coffee, you can now buy butter infused with almost anything.
At Waitrose, flavoured butters are flying off the shelves, with sales up 39 per cent over the past 12 weeks alone.
Fans are pairing them with everything from steaks to pancakes, with butter becoming something of a status symbol among the TikTok generation.
A recent editorial in The New York Times described unwrapping a block of Kerrygold – the brand of choice for reality stars the Kardashians – as an ‘almost transcendent’ experience, while social media chef Thomas Straker has built a career, with a 5.2 million-strong following, on his love of butter.
In 2023, he co-founded All Things, a booming butter business based on a dairy farm in Somerset, which sold over 100,000 packs in its first 10 weeks and is now stocked nationwide.
Straker’s co-founder and CEO, Toby Hopkinson, says the appeal of butter lies in familiarity and nostalgia – whether plain, salted or spiked with an unusual flavour.
‘It’s versatile, accessible and rooted in high-quality dairy, so it feels both indulgent and every day,’ he says. ‘Butter has always been a kitchen staple, but we wanted to show people it’s a hero ingredient.’
Such is the modern-day obsession with butter that The Pembroke, the new members’ club for the super-rich (fees start at £3,250) which opens in London later this year, has recently advertised for a ‘butter sommelier’ to source, promote and pair high-end butter at the venue.
A club insider tells the Daily Mail: ‘It’s really a sign of the times. There’s a sommelier for wine, a barista for coffee, so why not butter? We think that level of detail matters.’
As butter prices continue to rise, due to a decline in milk production and increased production costs, you can expect to pay more for a block of the gold stuff too.
Plain butter prices now range between 74p and £1.16 per 100g, while flavoured packs can set you back several times this, between £5 and a whopping £11.11 per 100g.
