Why is the slot size in almost all electric toasters about a quarter of an inch less than the height (the longest dimension) of almost all normal-sized sliced loaves? The only way you can use them is either first to trim the excess off the slice, or to insert it vertically, and toast first the bottom, then the top - which usually leads to it being rather dried-out and unevenly toasted.
Our toaster's slot is wide (long?) enough to take a normal slice sideways.
More importantly, why are they designed so the cheese keeps falling off?
Cheers
Because they were designed for bread size at the time but bakers keep changing bread size?
Ian Jackson wrote
A huge number of people are making their own bread now The bread from machines is somewhat larger than bought bread, which makes toasting a pita. Only Russell Hobbs make toasters capable of holding larger slices, but their toasters are s**te. They get very hot and browning can be a lottery. Upside is - they're cheap around £22.
Aha! Pita bread!
(I'll get me coat...)
I think I'll join you. Wait for me! :-)
I don't trim it, but first stick it in vertically, which slightly shrinks the slice, so halfway through toasting, I turn it to horizontal and that evens up the browning.
But I can't see how Dualit don't notice during their extensive testing that a slice of Warburtons Toastie doesn't fit ...
Some years ago we bought a Kenwood single-slot toaster with adjustable depth. You can get a very large slice in (horizontally). Or two frozen croissants for defrost and warm-through. Even that struggles with one edge of many bought loaves unless you do rotate the slices during toasting.
So pleased that we finally had a sensible answer to toasting home-baked breads, we bought a second one as insurance. It has worked - the original is still working.
It had been a very expensive device but we got both in the last few days of Robert Dyas website flogging them off as end of range - something like one third the price they had been in the shops.
Depends on the machine and what you put in it: I make my loaves using
330g of flour (+250ml water) which gives a loaf size that is just right for toasting.I have to say that I've not encountered this, in many ways an ordinary grill toasts in lines and at least toasters are usually even. Brian
Use vertical cheese - Swiss is best.
In the UK bread was controlled by statute from 1266 until 2008. Even though bakers are no longer controlled, the vast majority is still sold as 400gm or 800gm sizes; metrications of 14oz and 28oz, a reduction from
1lb and 2lb that was introduced during WW2 to save flour.
You need to buy one of those conveyor toasters used at the breakfast buffet in hotels.
Well, considering the variation in the bread thickness then how could you, I suppose you could spin the slice and toast one side, then turn it around spin and toast the other side, but there has to be some overlap as the length of slices does vary. also most toasters do tend to toaset less at the top so you can grab the slices without getting burned fingers when you push up the lever to get at the top.
I usually find those that dow two slices side by side are better made for eveness, and of course if you lay the slices in sideways its then pretty even if you have asbestos fingers to remove them. Brian
Best toaster I ever used was at a friends flat in Italy. Instead of the stupid poppy up mechanism whereby the items being toasted are either too big to fit or too small to retrieve it simply used a wire cage which you lifted into and out of the toaster.
Probably more reliable too (not much to go wrong).
On 2014-12-19, Nightjar
On a related note, are there any decent 4-slice toasters on the market at all ?
Last year, after our last (unsatisfactory) toaster packed up, I cut a template from a Warbutons in cardboard, and we trawled Apollo2000 and Currys (and Selfridges) and discovered that there was no toaster that would accommodate 2 full slices *and* toast the entire slice (since the top was sticking out.
In the end we found the cheapest "4" slice toaster (which just had 2 long slots) and put 2 slices in sideways. That worked for about 6 months, then started doing the sides unevenly.
We've given up now - that's what the cooker grill was made for.
We don't eat enough toast to justify a conveyor toaster ... so when I'm in a hotel with work, I make the best of it ;) IT is a high life really ... hotels and toast !
Italy has some brilliant little devices for the kitchen that they are determined not to export. (ISTM Italys e-commerce situation is cf. the UK in 1998).
I still want to get my hands on a sugar dispenser which has a button and (mechanically) dispenses 1 teaspoon with each press. A relative bought one back years ago, and I have never seen it in the UK ( because it seems most "kitchen shops" are just a show window for overpriced tat).
Having typed that, I'll search again - ISTR it was called a DosaZucchero ...
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.