The art of the toastie. Something I’ve been working on recently, so if you want my top tips then read on.

1. Don’t put lettuce in it. Today I thought, “oooh I’ll have a ham, cheese, lettuce and tomato sandwich… hell no, why not make it a toastie!”. Stop. Lettuce is probably 99% water, like celery but tastes better. Now it may be good for all you weight watchers out there, but for those of us that like a nice crispy-on-the-outside-gooey-in-the-middle toastie lettuce will not deliver. Your toastie machine will just produce lots of steam and not much good toastie.

2. Avoid tomatoes. Up until very recently I always was a fan of the cheese and tomato toastie. Admittedly you run the risk of losing the roof of your mouth but I just couldn’t find a decent replacement. Navigating that immensely hot slice of vegetable-impostor used to be part of the fun, be it the toastie equivalent of playing with fire. However, now I’ve discovered ham and it rocks. Moral of the story: eat ham not fruit.

3. The top slice of bread should be placed ever so slightly further back. In doing so you preempt the pushing forward action of the closing toastie maker lid and subsequently to not suffer from ‘out of phase’ toastie. Its a common problem, but one which is easily rectified.

4. Use thick slice bread. Preferably of the ‘local supermarket cant buy cheaper uber value’ brand. Raison d’etre i. using nice bread just isn’t worth it – the final product is going to be a cheesy sticky mess any how, ii. the perils of medium slice bread are not worth thinking about, sometimes the cheese leaks!

And there we have it, my top tips to avoiding toastie trauma. Enjoy.