Eat My Perspective (Buttered Toast)

I was craving buttered toast today as I sometimes do since I was a little kid.  It occurred to me that I always toast my bread then add butter, no different then as I would get them at any diner in the US.  Writing this blog has really forced me to look at food in different ways and wondered what would happen if I buttered my bread first before toasting? 


I started with two pieces of white bread from Watanabe Bakery, my favorite place for bread:

Taking two pieces, I buttered one on both sides using 2 tablespoons unsalted melted butter (1T on each side).

(Buttered one on the right)

After toasting in a standard toaster oven for 2.5 minutes, I took them out at the same time.

(Pre-buttered toast on the left)

I then buttered the dry toast with the same amount of melted butter on each side as the first toast and let it sit for 1 minute to absorb the butter

The results were a little surprising as I really didn't think of what I would get from this experience.  I actually didn't think there would be much of a difference, but I was wrong.  

Since butter is essentially fat, the buttered bread ended up being "fried" in the toaster and what I ended up with was a bread that was very crispy with just a hint of butter in the bread.  Can I get crispy bread without the butter?  Most certainly, but this was a whole other level of crispy.  I would definitely use this when eating something light like a BLT or with a pate'.

The buttered toast, by comparison, felt very heavy and the butter ends up getting in the way of the high quality bread.  It also doesn't yield the same crispness that was so appealing with the first toast.   While this is the way I've eaten it since I can remember, I think it was a bit of a revelation how much more I like the butter before toast method. 

End of the day, it's up to the individual but I thought this experiment on a food everyone takes for granted was a good way to perhaps change our perspective.

Thanks for reading!