The Only Tool You Need To Save Your Burnt Toast From Being Thrown Out

If there's one thing that characterizes an incredibly simple breakfast, it's toast. It's so insanely simple that describing it as "toasted bread" is literally all you need to know about it. If you're one of the 70% percent of Americans who enjoy toast for their morning meal (according to a 2011 study published by PR Newswire), you'll understand what makes toast so appealing. It's crunchy, it's golden, and it can be absolutely smothered in warm melted butter.

But as popular as toast is, burnt toast is equally unpopular. You know, that slice of charcoal-black bread that makes your whole house smell like charred breadcrumbs and burnt wiring? The reasons for burnt toast are many. Maybe you set the toaster temperature too high in hopes of getting your toast done faster. Maybe your toaster isn't as clean as you thought it was. Maybe you just went to go get ready and forgot about the toast until you heard the smoke alarm go off. However you look at it, your toast is now a better fit for the trash can than on your morning plate.

Or is it? What if there were a way that you could save your buttered toast? What if you could somehow grate the toast clean like scrubbing burnt food off a dish? The answer is that you can — and all you need to do is get your hands on a cheese grater.

When you look at a piece of burnt toast, chances are you're probably not going to take a bite of it. How could you eat something that's blackened to a rock? While you obviously aren't going to eat the toast as is, there's actually a simple way to grate that layer of blackened bread and get to that delicious golden layer of toast under it.

Speaking with Food & Wine, chef Silvia Baldini recommended using a four-sided cheese grater to remove the burnt bits of your toast. Simply take your piece of toast and rub it against the grater, saving the charred pieces in a bowl for later potential kitchen use. It's important to note that Baldini doesn't use the word "scrape," but instead, grate — you shouldn't be furiously grinding your toast against the grater, as this will just destroy your toast. You should instead grate the toast slowly in a circular motion, switching between the coarse and fine sides of the grater if need be, according to Baldini.

If done correctly, you should find that underneath that charred layer is a piece of toast that's more or less a dark golden brown. This is the part of the toast that's actually edible and can be enjoyed without making you sick. While it may not taste exactly the same as non-burnt toast, it's certainly better than tossing out what was once a perfectly good piece of bread. 

Imagine you're making two slices of toast for your morning breakfast. In an unfortunate stroke of luck, you burn both. You're now stuck with two pieces of burnt toast and, for whatever reason, you can't find your cheese grater. What do you do?

A good solution, according to subreddit r/LifeProTips user u/highvolt, is to simply rub the pieces of toast together. Put the burnt ends of the toast against each other and then gently rub them, which in turn will scrape off the burnt bits. This method is not only described as being practical, but it also saves you the trouble of washing more utensils. Other users seemed to have mixed messages about how effective this method really is, noting that it seemed almost counter-intuitive to getting the toast "clean." Whether you decide to do the "toast method" or the "cheese grater method" is up to you, so long as you can enjoy a piece of hot buttered toast again.