Buttering toast: A Simple Art

[Anna N]

With sincere apologies to Shizuoka Tsuji

 

 How do you butter your toast? 

 

Click

 

I endorse the pan method, the glue stick method and the cheese/potato peeler method. Cold butter is better by far than hot butter. Life is complicated, so is buttering toast.  

[Smithy]

What a sheltered life I've led! We keep a butter dish out of the refrigerator - and, if possible, out of the sun. Freshly toasted toast, room-temperature butter spread on with a knife. If we're out to dinner and they provide warm rolls with the classic icy pats of butter, a pat goes into the interior of the roll as quickly as possible.

 

My husband's daughter, who grew up helping as a short-order cook, insists on toasting a LOT of toast for the gang, buttering it with the room-temperature butter as soon as the toast pops, stacking it...and letting it get cold while everything else cooks. 

[Shelby]

Like @Smithy, I don't keep the butter dish in the fridge.

 

In the dead of winter and in the dead of summer the butter is pretty hard because I keep the house around 65F at all times.  In the spring and fall, with the windows open, it's more butter-conducive.  Thus, in the winter and summer, I butter the bread first and then toast in the CSO.  In the spring and fall, I butter after toasting.

 

See?  

 

It is complicated.

[lemniscate]

Butter dish on counter, all year.  I have a 70's GE toast-r-oven for my toaster.  I toast, it pops open, I butter, then I put toast back in oven to take advantage of residual heat to let the butter soak in.  Maybe 30-40 seconds. 

[heidih]

Sadly I grew up with margarine and non-fat milk. Only got into butter when had room mate few years ago who kept it on the  counter.  In restaurants I never undersstod the icy cold stuff - you could not taste it!

[Tri2Cook]

Hopefully this won't cost me my eGullet membership but I don't have a method for buttering my toast. I use whatever butter or margarine happens to be handy at whatever temp it happens to be at and just spread it around on the toast as best I can with whatever utensil I happen to have at hand. Butter is my preference but I'd be lying if I said I never use margarine. I prefer the grease component melts on the toast if I'm going to use jelly/jam, otherwise, I don't really care if it melts or not.

[kayb]

Mark me down in the butter-on-the-counter camp. I like to butter my bread before I toast it. I grew up in a margarine-in-the-fridge  household with toast made in the oven under the broiler, buttered in advance. As the margarine was not spreadable, I have vivid recollections of slices of toasted bread with four little buttery squares, and nice golden brown all around them.

 

[pastrygirl]

I admit, sometimes I glue-stick it. 

[Katie Meadow]

10 hours ago, Smithy said:

What a sheltered life I've led! We keep a butter dish out of the refrigerator - and, if possible, out of the sun. Freshly toasted toast, room-temperature butter spread on with a knife. If we're out to dinner and they provide warm rolls with the classic icy pats of butter, a pat goes into the interior of the roll as quickly as possible.

 

My husband's daughter, who grew up helping as a short-order cook, insists on toasting a LOT of toast for the gang, buttering it with the room-temperature butter as soon as the toast pops, stacking it...and letting it get cold while everything else cooks. 

 

Your husband's daughter must be an Anglophile. The English way is to make sure the toast is cold by the time it comes to the table. That's why they invented the toast rack.

 

In an ideal world my butter sits out for about an hour before spreading on hot toast. That's why I come down for my breakfast after my husband. I like Irish butter. If you use a high fat butter it is more spreadable than standard American butter right out of the fridge, as well. Plate, toast, knife, butter. In that order.

[chromedome]

I can keep mine on the counter year-round, without it getting too hard or too soft (or at most, too soft only for a few days of the year). Hot toast and soft butter works for me.

 

The odd time when I find an empty butter dish just as my toast pops (grrrr*), I'll pull it from the fridge and cut it thinly, and let it sit on top of my toast for a few moments to soften. As long as the bread is free of deep holes, I may even put it on top of the toaster to soak up that residual heat.

 

(*This happens because of visiting grandkids, or more accurately because of their parents. Said parents are also prone to the "milk back in the fridge with two tablespoons left in the bottom" gaffe, and the ever-popular "box of crackers or cereal back in the cupboard with LITERALLY 2 PIECES LEFT.")

[Katie Meadow]

15 hours ago, chromedome said:

 

(*This happens because of visiting grandkids, or more accurately because of their parents. Said parents are also prone to the "milk back in the fridge with two tablespoons left in the bottom" gaffe, and the ever-popular "box of crackers or cereal back in the cupboard with LITERALLY 2 PIECES LEFT.")

 

Your family and my husband's family must be kissing cousins. My husband and his brothers are all well known for leaving "not enough for a human portion" at the bottom of a box or a container. My husband claims that growing up they didn't want to be accused of finishing the last of anything, so a token few bites had to be left. That may be true, but my theory is that in addition, at least my husband leaves a scrap in a container so he doesn't have to make a decision about throwing something out or worse, washing said container. All three wives of these boys are resigned to the knowledge that this habit will never die. There is one sister, the youngest child, but there is no evidence that she does this. I wouldn't put it past her three sons, however.