Almost as soon as $4 San Francisco toast was declared trendy, critics cried “foul” and called it silly.
Originating at a little Bay Area spot called Trouble Coffee and Coconut Club, the idea of fancy toast with artisan toppings caught on. New York eateries chimed in with trumped-up toppings, exemplified by Bergen Hill’s fennel ganoush and lobster salad.
Let the critics bicker among themselves. The toast “trend,” if anything, just reminds us of toasted bread’s enduring appeal.
“If we’re cooking steaks on the grill, we’ll grill bread over pecan or oak wood,” says Clint Cooper, owner of Village Baking Co. in Dallas. “When it comes off, we put goat cheese and cracked pepper on it.”
At his house, toast is also a way to get his kids to eat a healthy breakfast. He and wife Kim make toast “soldiers” to dunk into soft-boiled eggs, a long-standing European tradition.
“It’s comfort food,” says Hibiscus executive chef Graham Dodds, whose menu includes fancy grilled toast. Toasts have figured on his menus since his Bolsa days.
CBD Provisions executive chef Michael Sindoni also loves him some toast. He not only has five kinds at CBD, he eats avocado toast for breakfast several times a week.
“They’re a blank slate,” he says. “You can do anything with it: Get creative. Be traditional.”
Toast comes in two broad styles: First, there are the crisps made with very thin bread slices that break like crackers. Most crostini — “little toasts” in Italian — fit this category.
Sindoni achieves the snappy texture of his crispy toasts with a panini press and adds savory toppings such as house-made ’nduja pimento cheese and chicken liver mousse. ’Nduja is a spicy pork spread.
Then there is the breakfast style: toasted, griddled or grilled slices of bread that remain soft inside. A lot of the toppings for these toasts could easily go on biscuits. Think local fresh butter and Texas peach jam.
The outlier is grilled toast. It’s more like bruschetta, which comes from the Italian “to roast over coals,” and does best with toppings that stand up to the char, says Dodds. Grilling imparts interesting smokiness, too.
Lest anyone get too big a head over haute toast, Cooper the baker reminds us of its long-ago origins: “It’s day-old bread that somebody finds a use for.”
Read on for the finer points of making your own trendy (or not) toast.
Recipes
Toast ‘Soldiers’ with Soft-Boiled Eggs
Watermelon Goat Cheese Toast from Hibiscus
Michael Sindoni’s Avocado Breakfast Toast
The right bread
Toast may have begun as a way to use up day-old bread, but these days, you’re probably going to start with a fresh loaf.
Cooper recommends sourdough for toasting.
“The crumb is more open, and it tends to toast a lot better,” he says. “It brings out the flavors you don’t get with an ordinary slice of bread.”
Dodds uses Village Baking Co.’s sourdough at Hibiscus and liked Empire Baking Co.’s ciabatta at Bolsa. CBD Provisions makes breads in-house.
Any good artisan bread will make good toast. Village Baking Co. and Empire Baking Co. are obvious sources, but most supermarkets have some type of artisan-style bread in the bakery area.
The kindest cuts
Slice the bread from a whole loaf, so you can control the thickness. Slice it just before you’re ready to toast it.
Use a good serrated knife and make the cut as straight as possible for uniform toasting.
For breakfast bread, 3/4 inch is a good thickness.
For thin toasts, cut the bread closer to 1/8 inch thick. To make that easier, says Cooper, freeze the bread until it’s firm before you apply the blade.
Ways to toast
Thin toasts should be crisp all the way through; for thicker, breakfast-style toast, softness at the center is OK. Bruschetta’s somewhere in between.
The toaster: You can make perfectly good toast with a toaster or toaster oven.
The broiler: An oven broiler makes toast that’s crisp on top and soft underneath; let the steam come off the bottom of the bread when you take it out of the oven.
Panini press: If you own a panini press, use it to make toast instead of a sandwich. “You get good grill marks and good color,” says Sindoni.
Griddle toasting: A griddle is another toasting tool. No griddle? Use a skillet over medium-high heat. For savory toast, brush each side lightly with olive oil. For a breakfast-style toast, use a smidge of butter.
Grilling: Brush each side lightly with olive oil or butter and grill over hot coals just until the bread chars, taking care not to burn it. Note: Rub the bread with cut garlic before grilling, if desired, if your toppings lean Mediterranean.
Sourcing local
High-end toast calls for the best quality toppings, such as local artisan ingredients. Besides farmers markets, these are good sources: Green Grocer (Dallas), Scardello Artisan Cheese (Dallas), Patina Green Home and Market (McKinney), Local Yocal Farm to Market (McKinney).
Fresh-churned butter: Lucky Layla Farms (farm store in Plano), Mozzarella Co. (Deep Ellum factory), Sundance Gardens (Coppell Farmers Market).
Artisan butter: Look for artisan butters at better supermarkets. Some folks are partial to Plugra European-style butter. I like Kerrygold Irish butter from grass-fed cows.
Fresh goat cheese: Caprino Royale, Mozzarella Co., Latte Da Dairy, On Pure Ground Dairy and Rosa Family Farm. (The latter two offer flavored varieties.)
Fresh cream cheese: Full Quiver Farms in Kemp makes spreads in flavors such as strawberry and pineapple.
Jams and jellies: Go to any farmers market or the stores above. North Texas boasts an abundance of local jam and jelly producers, among them Luscombe Farm, JJ&B Jellies Jams and Butters, and In a Pickle.
Topping ideas
A no-fail formula: Start with a creamy base, such as goat cheese or cream cheese, and top with a contrasting ingredient such as jam, honey, ripe fruit or tomatoes, and follow with a garnish. That might be fresh herbs, cracked pepper or chopped nuts.
Soft bases: Goat cheese, cream cheese, fresh ricotta, mascarpone cheese, crème fraîche. Farmstead butter requires no soft base. You could also use hummus. Nut butters or Nutella work for homey breakfast toasts.
Toppings: Good-quality jams and jellies, soft fresh fruit such as peaches or grilled figs in season, avocado (mashed or slices), sliced in-season tomatoes, bananas (especially on nut butters or Nutella), sliced olives, wafer-thin sliced cucumber or radishes, chicken liver mousse or pâté.
Garnishes/finishes: Olive oil, sea salt, cracked pepper, fresh herbs, caramelized onions or shallots, lemon zest, prosciutto, crumbled bacon, red pepper flakes.
Shortcuts: Make toasts from a flavored bread, such as Empire Baking Co.’s apple-cinnamon-walnut or kalamata olive, or Village Baking Co.’s Meyer lemon-rosemary loaf. Or start with assorted house-made crostini from Whole Foods Market. Top with flavored artisan goat cheese, such as On Pure Ground Dairy ambrosia (fruit), peach chipotle or figs and honey, or Rosa Family Farm honeynut apricot or blueberry, or candied jalapeño.
Suggested combos
Artisan butter and jam on rye bread
Goat cheese or mascarpone, fresh or grilled figs and olive oil on sourdough
Hummus, wafer-thin slices of cucumber, basil, tomato, sea salt and black pepper
Goat cheese, prosciutto, tomato and black pepper on olive bread
Nut butter, jam and lemon zest
Beemster Premium Dutch Cheese, basil and olive oil on sourdough
Goat cheese, caramelized onions, olive oil, sea salt and cracked pepper
Fresh ricotta, sliced fresh tomatoes, basil, olive oil, sea salt and cracked pepper
Hold the sea salt and add prosciutto or diced salami to the ricotta-and-tomato toast
Blue cheese whipped into fresh ricotta, grilled figs, finely chopped pecans
Mascarpone or softened cream cheese, sliced fresh peaches and lemon zest
Cream cheese, Nutella, mini chocolate chips
Peanut butter, mascarpone, crumbled bacon
Mascarpone or softened cream cheese, strawberry jam, crumbled bacon
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