The Secret Ingredients You Need To Turn Toast Into A Work Of Art

While very few (okay, no) TikTok chefs make us think, "There goes the next incarnation of Julia Child!" many of them are certainly innovative, we'll at least give them that. One area in which they seem to excel is that of creating food that is obviously meant to be visually appealing. One recent trend involves making extra fancy toast which, while we can't speak to how it may taste, certainly gives us something to look at.

How do these TikTok toast mavens do it? Well, in many cases, the secret ingredient is cream cheese plus food dye. Different colors of cheese are spread or swirled on the toast in some sort of design, and then additional blobs may be added to create anything from fairly simple patterns (if all you can manage is blurry swirls, just call it clouds and be done with it) to far more elaborate depictions of flower-filled meadows or cartoon characters. A piping bag with a frosting tip could probably help with this, although simpler utensils such as toothpicks can also be employed. For toast that is even more flavorful, yet equally colorful, jam is also sometimes used in conjunction with cream cheese.

According to one food stylist who claims to have invented the trend of using colored cream cheese to decorate toast, it goes by a name: mermaid toast. That's cute and all, but neither the idea of decorating toast nor of giving it a whimsical, fantasy-inspired name is anything new. Fairy bread, which can be toasted or not, has been a favorite Antipodean snack for nearly a century and it, too, can be made to look quite decorative with the skilled application of colored sugar and or rainbow sprinkles. Want to try your hand at making it? It's not hard to find a fairy bread recipe; just make sure to let the toast cool before applying any decorations, since melted sprinkles just look messy.

Yet another way to make decorative toast involves the toasting process itself. Cut a shape out of aluminum foil (you could trace around a cookie cutter as your guide), then center it atop a slice of bread and set it to toast in a toaster oven. While the uncovered edges of the toast will turn brown, the bit under the foil will remain white. Once this toast cools, you can then add little decorative touches with food coloring, raisins, chocolate chips, or perhaps a bit of colored cream cheese.