Toasters. Where would we be without them? Eating stale bread, that’s where. Toasters have got to be one of the kitchen bench’s best inventions, right behind the KitchenAid and the Thermomix, which basically whips up a whole meal.
A little toasting can completely resurrect a staling loaf, while the appliance can also be used for bagels, crumpets, English muffins, you name it. Bar a little bit of tinkering with the dials to ensure the perfect degree of toasting, toasters are a set and forget appliance.
They require such little cleaning and maintenance, that many will have gone their entire lives never even emptying the crumb tray. Not sure what a crumb tray is? You wouldn’t be alone.
Apparently, the TikTok generation has never been made aware of the fact most toasters have crumb trays — that is, a little pull-out trough that allows you to conveniently toss all of the crumbs and seeds that fall from your bread during the toasting process.
And if you’ve never known about this, then you’re in for a real treat. On your next visit to the kitchen, simply poke around at the base of your toaster in search of a little lip of latch. Slide it out horizontally, and you’ll be presented with years’ worth of debris.
The crumb tray exists to conveniently collect fallen particles (and so you don’t have to turn your toaster upside down and shake above the sink every few months), but it also plays a key role in fire safety.
Crumbs that get burnt and burnt again could eventually catch fire, which at the best-case scenario will see your building evacuated, and at the worst, your house catch flames. Not ideal.
Basically, you want to make it a regular thing to empty your crumb tray every so often.
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