When toast is properly made the moisture in the bread is slowly dried out, and then the outside of the slice is changed by stronger heat to a golden brown. This requires constant attention; the bread needs be turned constantly, lest it brown before the drying out is completed. This process changes the starch to dextrose, and thus continues, outside the stomach, the digestion of the starch begun in the first cooking of the bread. A bed of coals, a hinged toaster, and a slice of stale bread would seem to be the sine qua non for this operation; but a well-toasted slice of bread is not the impossibility that the ordinary result would indicate when gas and oil stoves are used for this purpose. When a gas range is used, the toaster needs be held slightly above the hot plate set over the flame, or else under the flame in the lower oven.

Cut the bread for toast in even slices one fourth an inch thick, these may be toasted as cut, but they look better when the slices are trimmed to be uniform in shape and size. Prepare and serve a few slices at once and when needed. Send to the table in a hot toast rack, or, if a plate be used, keep the slices separate and thus crisp. Toast used for meat in sauces, poached eggs, etc., is usually dipped quickly into boiling salted water, then spread with softened or creamed butter. When used under game, it is moistened with the drippings from the baking pan and spread with the liver of the game mashed fine and seasoned. For serving as dry toast, pleasing effects are secured by changes in the toaster. Toasters with lengthwise wires and those with lengthwise and crosswise wires give different results.

Milk Toast

Cut four slices of bread half an inch thick and toast as above dip the edges of each slice into boiling salted water, arrange on a serving dish and pour over them one cup of white sauce made with milk. Or the slices, one at a time, may be put in the dish of sauce, and, when the sauce has been dipped over them, transferred to the serving dish.

Tomato Toast

Prepare four slices of milk toast. Remove the skin from two tomatoes and cut in halves; dip in melted butter, then in fine cracker or bread crumbs, sprinkle with salt and broil until the tomato is softened and the crumbs browned. Serve half a tomato on each slice of toast.

Tomato Toast, No. 2

Prepare as milk toast, using half a cup, each, of tomato pulp and milk in the sauce. Grated cheese may be added, if desired.

Cream Toast

Prepare four slices of toast; dust with salt and pour over one cup and a half of cream that has been kept heated to about 16o° Fahr. fifteen minutes or longer.

Cream Toast With Cheese

Sprinkle hot toasted bread with grated cheese, and set in the oven until the cheese melts; pour over hot cream, or white sauce made with milk, and serve at once. A beaten egg may be added to the cream or to the sauce.