Our 52nd slice of toast - Jam and whipped cream

After the death of my previous jam (RIP sweet tip raspberry) we purchased a new jar. This time, we went for a reliable strawberry flavoured conserve by Bonne Maman. This brand was recommended by Grace and what a good recommendation it was. A thick and easy spread and it tasted ace. A worthy replacement for the Wilkin and Sons we all love.

As you can imagine, this was very much like a good old English cream tea, but with wholemeal seeded bread instead of the buttery scone. And in a way, it is better. The buttery taste was still in attendance as we buttered the toast first and wholemeal bread has more wholesome flavours than the scone. The only difference was that we used whipped cream, not clotted cream. Despite this, the slice was fantastic.

Squirting the whipped cream itself was, for inexperienced whipped creamers such as ourselves, a much harder task than you would imagine. Grace was so disappointed with hers that she just smoothed it all over and, well, there's my attempt. Not how I envisaged.

Oh and it leaves you with a white moustache after each bite and white moustaches are funny.

Our 51st slice of toast - PB and blue cheese

I can't recall ever having cheese with my PB. Not even in a sandwich. Grace on the other hand has previously enjoyed cheddar with hers. So with cheese up next, I decided to push those dairy boundaries and risk the blue cheese. I did play it safe though with my choice of blue cheese. Saint Agur is delicious - not too strong and really creamy. I presumed the creamy factor would assist in the spreading. I was half right.

Grace put her trust in me here too and was not left disappointed. She was highly impressed by this mould stricken cheese from central France. Spreading took a bit of work and resulted in a less than neat result, but worked well enough. As for the PB/blue cheese compatibility, we say it works. The first bite gave me a sensation of taste confusion but from the second bite on, we were left very satisfied. Since its consumption, many a man has turned his nose up at the prospect of PB and blue cheese - don't be one of them!

Our 50th slice of toast - Banana and cinnamon

It was time for our half century slice, for which we had banana and cinnamon. Ever since the simple cinnamon and sugar we had weeks back, Grace has found quite a love for this versatile spice. Not limited just to use in cakes, it can be thrown in to savoury dishes or in your tea or coffee for a chai twist.

Building this one was also good. We made towers with the banana and I do like to get overly involved in stenciling around the edge of my slice, resulting in a rather large quantity of cinnamon, but the stencil looked awesome. I loved it and so did Grace. Now go get yourself some ground cinnamon and you can start sprinkling that shit on everything!

Our 49th slice of toast - Mayonnaise

Niether Grace nor I are big condiment sauce fans. A bit of red with your chips, perhaps, but we'd rather a tasty pickle or chutney in our sandwich's. So unsurprisingly, we weren't particularly looking forward to mayonnaise on our toast. Now we could have made it a bit better for ourselves by purchasing some flavoured mayonnaise or at the very least reaching out for a higher class brand. But not us. We went with the cheap sachet's you get at canteens (ours included).

Mayonnaise spreads well, i'll admit that. It didn't taste very nice though. It was bordering on the vinegary side, any more so and it would probably have been salad cream. This was made only bearable by the splendid bread of choice - Co-Op wholemeal seeded batch. I'm quite certain that neither of us will be having this again.

Our 48th slice of toast - Pesto

First things first, the pesto jar had a great pop! Unlike the disappointing salsa! Don’t you agree that the pop of a new jar is always very satisfying?!

Tom, I thought loved pesto… I took this assumption by the unbelievably thick layer he applied to his. I opted for the more sparse approach on my slice, being as sparing as possible. I went on to learn that we both agreed on this topping. It was very strong; almost over powering. I am not sure if pesto belongs on toast. I don’t think either of us will have it again… (unless it pops again further down the list!)

Our 47th slice of toast - Maple walnut raisin cream cheese

You should have seen the mess I created in trying to make this topping. It was a last minute thing as I had forgotten to make this topping for a number of days.

The topping consisted of cream cheese (The Aldi kind of course), walnuts and raisins, a little bit of water, brown sugar and maple syrup. It should have been maple flavour extract but I think the syrup worked well. I threw it all in to a bowl and used a hand held blender to mix the concoction….. This did not go well! I quite literally had walnuts and raisins flying everywhere, making a complete mess of the kitchen first thing in the morning. I quickly legged it before my mum saw the mess!

The topping was quite nice, Tom even went so far as to say delicious, he did say however there were too many raisins… (So in the end it was quite lucky that most flew out in the mixing stage). We both thoroughly enjoyed our toast as we were looked at in envy by others round our table!

Maple Walnut Raisin Cream Cheese

(4 servings)

• 8 oz cream cheese -- softened
• 2 teaspoons walnuts -- chopped into coarse pieces
• 2 teaspoons raisins -- finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon water
• 3 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon maple-flavour extract
• 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon

A food processor is a big help with this recipe, but you can do it by hand.

Whip cream cheese until smooth. While continuing to whip, slowly add all of the remaining ingredients.

Cover and chill until firm (at least an hour or two).

Spread this on your bagels or toast for a great morning treat. The spread stores well in the refrigerator for about a week.

Huzzah!

Our 46th slice of toast - Plain, with a good old cup o' tea

Simple yet effective.

I am glad we didn’t have to dip our toast in the tea like the coffee in topping 17. As both Tom and I are great Yorkshire Tea Gold fans, I think dipping toast in tea would have ruined a great brew. (We did however dip some chocy biccies)

Buttered seeded wholemeal bread was a nice break from the weird and the wonderful toppings we have experienced recently and it went down rather quickly.

Our 45th slice of toast - Orange rind

Orange rind on toast was a welcome addition to our toast topping challenge. Poor Tom was suffering from a cold… And I have a lot of respect for him, he did not whinge like the regular male in his situation and he did not contract the dreaded “Man Flu”. However the vitamin C rich topping came at a great time to help with his recovery process. After finishing the toast he enjoyed the rest of the orange. =]

Orange on toast was a weird combination, even with the addition of sugar we both found it quite bitter. I think we went a bit overboard on the application of the rind. The after taste however was a pleasant one. Tom has spoke previously about wearing facemasks after such toppings as smoked salmon and garlic. Having orangey breath was a nice change for once.

I have to say I don’t think I would have it again; I’d rather eat the toast and orange separately!

Our 44th slice of toast - Peanut butter and jelly

Peanut butter jelly time. Peanut butter jelly time. If this doesn't make sense to you, slap it in to youtube and look for a bonkers banana animation. This video was then used in a family guy episode. Again, if you haven't seen that, youtube it. That is what youtube is for after all. Enough about youtube, more about my willy. I mean toast. More about toast. Didn't make sense? Youtube willy bum bum. That actually doesn't make sense. ANYWAY...

Grace wasn't aware of the difference between jam and jelly, but there certainly is. Jam is made from crushed fruit whereas jelly is made from fruit juice. The jelly therefore becomes a more consistent and solid product than jam. Personally I prefer jam and we used this with our peanut butter instead, though 'peanut butter jam time' just doesn't work. Our PB of choice was crunchy Sunpat and our jam was the last of my delicious Wilkin and Sons Sweet Tip Raspberry.

The slice itself was delicious, which I assume is why I hear it is quite popular in the wonderful world of U.S.A. I recommend that you spread the peanut butter first to provide a secure foundation for the jam. Only a fool would attempt it the other way round and expect the sort of success you see in that there picture. It certainly tasted like success.

Our 43rd slice of toast - Icing sugar

Another successful british business recently sold to America, Tate and Lyle are famous for their wonderful sugar. But who thought people would get so fussy on their plain and simple sugar? Well we certainly were and so opted for their finest sugar - icing sugar. As Grace discovered in due course, you need a surprisingly small amount of water to get a good consistency as those super dainty little sugar grains soak that water up like bounty (the super-soaker-up-er-bounty, not the chocolate bar). I hope you sung the song.

We chose a slightly less thick consistency than you would use on a cake so that it spread well. Using our consistency atop a cake would result in many long sweet drainpipes all down the sides which, unless it was a fantasy house cake, would look rather silly . On applying mine, I tried to make some funky swirling patterns for arts and fun, but they smeared together leaving me no choice but to smooth it all over. I was a little disappointed at this, but my frown was soon turned upside down once I had taken my first bite. It tasted wonderful, with its smooth silky topping filling in all the holes in the soft but coarse natured bread. I recommend this, but please consider your application method before finalising your consistency. We make these mistakes so you don't have to.

Our 42nd slice of toast - Apple sauce

We purchased some Colman's apple sauce from our local co-operative. This was because we didn't make any at home, which I inherently regret. I have made my own apple sauce before and it is an easy and rewarding task. Take some apple, chop them up skins removed and boil them in a little water, continually adding more water until you reach the desired consistency. I then add some nutmeg and a quite hearty serving of cinnamon, plus a dash of salt to bring out the flavour. Simple, but superb.

Big brand apple sauce, such as Colman's, instead only contains 70% apples. They also chose to use bramley apples which I personally find less tasty then golden delicious in apple sauce. Grace agreed with me on this. Either way, we piled the apple sauce on the butter free toast and added a sprinkle of cinnamon over the top too, leaving behind a well defined toast stencil. I do love stencils. Grace, who I may remind you LOVED the super sickly s'mores slice of toast, found this apple sauce too sweet! So she had to scrape quite a lot off to finish hers.

I would like to recommend homemade apple sauce on toast. But not store bought. In fact, I wouldn't really recommend store bought apple sauce for anything culinary, but instead for perhaps some form of art or decor, or as ammunition on the end of a spoon flick for attacking neighbouring enemies. Then they will feel disgraced to have been attacked by store bought apple sauce.

Our 41st slice of toast - Ice cream

"This is just silly", I said before trying this slice of madness. Ice cream on toast is just silly. So we then decided to make it even sillier by choosing Viennetta, rather than just a plain scoop. The other reason was that it only costed a single pound coin, or equivalent change. I have to say that the box design looks a little dated, but we'd had Viennetta before so we didn't require a luring design. The eye sore that is the yellow and red £1 label said it all.

So in case you've been deprived of Viennetta throughout your life so far, it comes like a log. Very much a yule log in fact, but not for Christmas. It is made up of swirly layers of ice cream and thin solid chocolate. We cut 2 slices each and laid them besides each other on the toast. No butter. We didn't need butter where we were heading. Oh but won't the toast go soggy I hear you ask? Pipe down with those foolhardy questions. This is a frozen product so stays contained atop the toast. If you were to not eat it and instead watch it do nothing then yes, the toast will become soggy. So don't do that. Eat it. It tastes amazing. I never expected this but wowzers what a winner.

Our 40th slice of toast - Strawberry butter

No, there's no scrambled egg involved.

We took this from a recipe supplied with a picture. In the picture was a smooth pink mixture, rather appealing. Ours, not so much - we did a terrible job but we knew why. Firstly, we used Utterly Butterly which works OK as a spread on toast to replace butter and reduce fat intake blah blah blah but it doesn't however replace butter well in cooking and the same applies to strawberry butter. The other problem was that we didn't have a blender. Instead, we had a knife, a spoon, a bowl and a limited quantity of elbow grease. Oh and the strawberries were mouldy.

So we mashed the old strawberries (fur removed) as much as we could with a spoon and knife in the bowl. We were told to remove the seeds from the outside, but that would take way too long and we wanted to see if we could grow strawberry plants in our bellies. We then added the Utterly Butterly and mixed it into a curdle. We tried a brief microwave, but to no avail. So eventually, we gave up with the mixing and chucked it on to the toast. It looked very strange, but the flavours were all there and honestly, they didn't go well. For me, it was the clash of sweet strawberries against savoury brown bread. Of course some sweet does work on toast, but this just didn't for either of us. Perhaps a well made strawberry butter with real butter and fresh strawberries, mixed in a blender would have tasted better, but i'm not entirely convinced.

Still waiting on the strawberry plants.

Our 39th slice of toast - Almond butter

We have had quite a few butter variations throughout our adventure and with many more to come. This was almond butter, which was made at home with butter, ground almonds and a dash of olive oil. It mixed together easily and spread well too. The flavour though was fairly bland, as neither butter nor almonds have a particularly strong taste. The slice did however grow on me as it went through. It seemed that as my taste buds gave up expecting the strong flavours they are used to, they learnt to accept this and finished the slice kind of wanting more. Unfortunately for them, I hadn't made enough.

As can be appreciated from the picture, it didn't look all that either.

Our 38th slice of toast - Olives and cream cheese

We finally finished our pot of Philadelphia cream cheese and what a way to go. I absolutely love olives and in return they love my skin, my cholesterol and my ticker, which I hold quite close to my chest. We went for a co-operative pack of fresh olives with feta cheese as the brilliance of olives are very much disgraced by the brine in jars. The feta was an added bonus for afterwards.

I used to hate olives, but after having to turn down an army of free fresh olives throughout the duration of a business trip in Toulouse, France, I decided it was time to get to know them. Starting with some little blacks hidden away in my Subway sandwiches, to fairly regular brined green olives each day they eventually won my heart and I now fail to see how I ever hated them. Grace on the other hand is sitting on the fence. Our friend Chris says that if you eat 10 in a row, you stop hating them. She managed 8, so continues her fence situation.

Still, she didn't find the slice all that bad and I was incredibly pleased, finishing the pot between me and Chris afterwards. If I could afford smoked salmon and olives for brunch every day, I certainly would!

Our 37th slice of toast - Smoked salmon and cream cheese

Today, we continued to make use of our Philadelphia cream cheese, now accompanying it with a super match - smoked salmon. Not only does this taste good but is also very good for you. It does tend to lean towards the higher prices, but seems to be permanently half price in every supermarket I ever visit. Perhaps no one buys it otherwise? This could be a classic supermarket shop floor tactic.

Well we both enjoyed it. This topping does run a fairly low risk of the chin slap dangle, or CSD, discussed previously in the BLT blog post, but this is fairly easy to avoid should the appropriate caution be implemented (biting properly).

The only real down side to this is the smell. Grace caught smelly-salmon-hands, or SSH, from merely holding the sealed packaging in the shop. This was then exacerbated when opened and touched to place strategically on the toast. I went for a ruffled effect whilst Grace laid hers quite flat. We did wash our hands after, but this only lessened the SSH. The breath is also a problem should you, like us, wear a face mask shortly afterwards. A mint is recommended, though this also eliminates the delicious flavour quite welcomely left in your mouth. The choice is yours.

Our 36th slice of toast - Cream cheese and tomato puree

The tomatoes are back, but in disguise. Not really the best disguise as whilst they have rid themselves of the juices and tomato aesthetics, they have double concentrated their flavour. Yet, this seemed enough to fool Grace as we spread it in to our cream cheese at toast level, rather than using a separate location for the mixing process. We again used the consistent Philadelphia cream cheese that we used with our chives.

Grace found this one fairly good. I didn't really like it. It started off as a quite instant no, but as the slice went on, it grew on me. Alas, this was not enough to ever warrant me doing this again. I would certainly prefer plain cream cheese.

Our 35th slice of toast - Cream cheese and chives

We purchased the superior Philadelphia brand of cream cheese as we were using it for a few toppings during the week to come. We also had fresh chives, chopped there and then with a small pair of scissors emerged from the depths of a neighbouring lady's handbag. We washed them first of course. We trust no one when it comes to hygiene.

Grace overestimated the strength of the chives, clearly inexperienced in the field of fresh 'erb fragrance to taste ratios. I on the other hand put a few more on, providing me with a more 'erby flavour. The other reason Grace couldn't taste so well was because of her blocked nose. These went together brilliantly too. Great stuff.

Our 34th slice of toast - Salsa

Used most often as a dip for tortilla chips or in a burrito, salsa is a great Mexican side dish. I'm not sure how often Mexican's eat toast, but if they did then they will have inevitably tried this as well.

Home made salsa is good and easy, but we went for some Doritos mild salsa. They were on offer so was saved ourselves some bucs and I later smothered it on some salmon fillets before cooking them in the oven, which was amazing. But, enough about salmon, more about toast.

We had the salsa cold and obviously the toast was hot, well, warm once the salsa made contact. I piled it on my slice, whilst Grace was a little less Gung-Ho. We both enjoyed this one, which says a lot for Grace's seemingly irrational fear of tomatoes when she was the culprit of the pre-photo bite!

Our 33rd slice of toast - Garlic

Garlic is amazing. It can be used in so very many dishes and even swallowed raw for an immune system boost. Of course, you could just take garlic extract capsules which don't have the smelly breath side effects! In fact, I find garlic so amazing that I get genuinely annoyed when I find that it doesn't appear under the 'popular items' section of supermarket self-service tills.

Fortunately, having this does not literally mean chunks of raw garlic on toast. As you may have already figured, I am a massive fan of garlic but i'm not sure I would enjoy that. Rather, it is a raw clove of garlic rubbed over buttered toast. I wasn't sure how much flavour we would be able to get on to the toast using this method, but we were certainly left with breath fit to cause the best of friends to vacate our vicinity. We cut the clove in half too so that we get a juicier surface unlike the outside.

This did of course mean that the flavour was all there and we were pleased with that. And yes, it probably is the same as just having garlic butter on toast, but I would imagine that people don't often have that lying around. This is quite quick and easy.

Our 32nd slice of toast - Cottage cheese and jam

We now find ourselves back on the sense baffling savoury-sweet hybrid that is cheese and jam. Previously, we tried cream cheese and jam and it is now cottage cheese and jam.

I've never found myself particularly able to taste the 'cheesiness' of cottage cheese. I like it, but it never stood out. That was until this simple slice threw all that is uncheesy cottage cheese from my mind. The sweetness of the jam really emphasized the cottage CHEESE and again, we liked the jam and cheese juxtaposition.

As for the spreadability factor, the option for arty-farty layering was far and few between due to a lack of solidity in both toppings, leaving us amalgamating them upon the toast for a uniform dispersion.

Our 31st slice of toast - Lemon curd

Not a fan of lemons? Don't let that dissuade you. This spreadable lemon produce is delicious. You will find that it has all the sweet and tasty tastes of lemon, without the bitterness people find off putting. I knew this before this slice, which is evident by my bite mark taken before Grace could even take a photo.

So not the best topping for a photo, but good for eating.

Our 30th slice of toast - Pizza

Now don't get carried away. This isn't a slice of toast with an extra large meat feast domino's pizza with dominator base slapped on top. This is a slice of toast with toppings similar to what you would ordinarily put on your pizza base. Like a quick snack pizza, without the hassle of whipping up some dough and watching it rise whilst your hunger grows out of control.

We went for a bruschetta and sausage topping. The bruschetta was actually from a jar of Dolmio bolognese sauce, whilst the sausages were pork and herb cumberland's purchase from our work canteen, located in an old listed barn on site. Grace had her sausages sliced in long halves whilst I opted for smaller slices as I was trying to create a more pizza looking arrangement. I would suggest trying my method if you use sausages who's skin lies on the tough side, otherwise you may pull them off your toast if your bite isn't fully successful. We've all been there with a rump steak sandwich. No one looks good with meat hanging from their mouth and slapping against their chin.

Our 29th slice of toast - BLT

BLT is a very popular sandwich filling. I am yet to hear of someone not familiar with this acronym, especially since our modern culture's recent acronym obsession. Anyone not familiar should swiftly receive all 3 ingredients around the chops. There is just no forgiveness.

It is popular for a reason as it tastes great. For Grace however, this is not the case as it contains one of her biggest culinary fears - T. As mentioned in the T on toast blog post, she carries a passionate hatred for this juicy fruit, thus making the BLT a not so splendid snack. She did finish though, making a toasted sandwich out of it to reduce bites. The L we had was of the iceberg kind and the B was cooked how I like it (not crispy and half its original size). I would recommend from previous experience that the use of curly lettuce may improve the event, though that is of course a matter of personal taste.

Our 28th slice of toast - Lemon butter

Another home made butter recipe.  I say made, but there's really not much to it.  We didn't have time to enjoy toast for brunch today as we are such busy workers, so we had it at lunch with some friends, who got involved in recipe fun.  Nick grated a lemon with the quite pathetic blade of a table knife, whilst Kerry fine tuned the mixing process.  In the mix went butter, lemon juice and lemon jest.

The mix could have gone better with better utensils.  Instead, we had a plastic bowl and a knife.  Kerry did a good job though, with what she was given.  The end result still spread well if not slightly too watery and on careful inspection, fine gratings of zest can be well observed.  It tasted adequately lemony and even packed a small kick, which was great.

Nick stuck the knife through the lemon at the end.  It was a shame.

Our 27th slice of toast - Maple syrup

American style maple syrup apparently.  Or so the bottle said.  Grace acquired this from her Mother, who cares very much for it, so we were pleased to be so lucky as to have some.

Eating this, one couldn't help but think of pancakes.  Come to think of it, I don't think i've ever had maple syrup on anything else (apart from perhaps as a sweetener in something).  American's of course like to pour it on bacon, but I care a little for my health.  It was still very nice though, as I enjoy maple syrup on pancakes and it really doesn't differ much from being on toast.

Our 26th slice of toast - Apple butter

We made the apple butter ourselves.  We bought an apple, only to find upon cutting that it wasn't ageing well.  It was also fairly spongey to the touch.  There's a lesson there - give those apples a good fingering before you buy.  We weren't really perturbed by the apple's darkening insides, so cut it up and zapped it in the microwave for a couple of minutes until soft.  We then mushed it all up with butter and hey presto!

No, its not the same as apple sauce, though not a million miles away.  It was however very nice, potentially improved by the rotting for a sweeter taste.

Our 25th slice of toast - Hummus

Grace and I are both hummus fans.  We have also been to the Hummus Bro's restaurant in Soho, which we both recommend highly and I have a T-shirt supporting the said establishment.  They make the finest plain hummus I have ever tasted, with a great range of toppings and damn good drinks to offer too.

For our 25th slice of toast though, we made do with reduced co-op plain hummus.  It was good of course, but one has to consider the potential of perhaps a chickpea and sun-dried tomato topped moroccan hummus, or other variety with a similar degree of excitement.  Give all the varieties a go!  I made my own once, but it smelled rather of cat food.

Our 24th slice of toast - Eggs and cheese

Eggs are a versatile food used alone, in cakes or as a binding agent amongst other things, cooked in oil, in water, in steam, dry or on the bonnet of a car in the height of summer. You name it. They are also quite weird when you think about them, which makes the chicken just as strange to be able to produce so many of them. But we still eat them.

We went for fried eggs with cheese atop. There was a lot of cheese, bordering on too much despite our love for the cave bred delicacy. We also had this at the same time as the butter coated bacon, narrowly avoiding heart attacks that afternoon. Grace loved all that cheese. She clearly has some issues. Always pepper your egg too because it’s good. Not powdered pepper though because that stuff sucks. Grace and I both agree on that.

Our 23rd slice of toast - Bacon

Introducing Epic meal time's favourite choice of meat, the bacon.  If only I got paid for that slice of advertising.  Bacon sandwiches are a much loved breakfast choice amongst Briton’s, especially when suffering from a hangover.  When that enticing smell drifts up our unsuspecting noses, we find ourselves helpless to its consumption.

I found bacon on toast to be a fairly different experience to a good old bacon sarny, but no better or worse.  You don’t get the soft bread keeping your fingers clean but also soaking up the cured piggy flavours, but you do get twice the bacon to bread ratio which offers a meatier meal.  The texture of the toast also compliments the bacon well.  And yes, there is a lump of butter on top of the pictured bacon but this was never designed to be healthy.  No.  This is not one for the dieter.