The perfect toast
- Read time:
- 1 min
- Published:
- 19 December 2003
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If you thought making a piece of toast was as simple as putting the bread in the toaster, waiting for it to pop up then spreading on the butter, think again. Preparing the perfect piece of toast is far more complicated.
A research, commissioned by Lurpak, looked at how the properties of melting butter affect the taste of toast and found that people think the perfect piece of toast should have partly melted butter patches on it, which improves its taste and texture.
The research lead to the ultimate equation for the perfect toast. But if figuring out the equation seems a little complicated first thing in the morning, Leeds University food scientist, Professor Bronek Wedzicha, translated the equation into practical terms for toast lovers everywhere.
“To produce the patches of butter most people said they enjoyed, the bread needs to be heated to at least 120°C, and the butter should be used straight from the fridge, applied unevenly within two minutes of the bread coming out of the toaster.
“The amount of butter should be about one-seventeenth the thickness of the bread,” he added.
Dave Hughes, brand manager for Lurpak, in Arla Foods UK said: “This has been a very interesting piece of research and has resulted in some fascinating facts about butter, how it melts into toast and how this affects the taste.”
The Lurpak toast equation
The equation where H represents thickness, Cp the specific heat, P density, T the initial temperature of the toast, w the weight, and a and b the toast and butter respectively, should be applied if you want to release Lurpak’s maximum taste potential on your slice of bread.
Arla Foods is an international dairy company owned by more than 8,400 farmers from Denmark, Sweden, the UK, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Arla Foods is one of the leading players in the international dairy arena with well-known brands like Arla®, Lurpak®, Puck® and Castello®. Arla Foods is focused on providing good dairy nourishment from sustainable farming and operations and is also the world's largest manufacturer of organic dairy products.
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