The Toaster Hack You'll Wish You Knew Sooner

If you eat toast for breakfast on a daily basis — or perhaps use your toaster for one of these ingenious cooking tricks — you know that handy little appliance gets a lot of use. And while that means your money was well invested, it also means you have to clean the gadget a lot more often. Because when it comes to a toaster and bread, you're going to have lots and lots of crumbs. 

While the outside may be easy enough to freshen up with a gentle wipe down — just make sure you unplug it from the electrical outlet because, safety first — getting inside and at the bottom to scoop up all the little particles is a bit more tedious. Maybe you've taken the toaster and turned it upside down over the sink or trash bin and given it a little tap (who hasn't?) — but you may be surprised to know that toasters come with a special hidden trick that makes cleaning them extra easy.

If you're on TikTok, or another form of social media, you may occasionally come across a cleaning hack that blows your mind. Get ready to have that happen again. Because if you've never taken a good look at your toaster or bothered to read the instruction manual, it's possible you may have skipped right over a really handy component that makes life way easier.

Toasters have built-in crumb trays! Yup, those trusty toaster designers thought about all the bread crumbs that would accumulate and did us a solid favor — so how are we just finding out about this now? (Lucky you if you already knew.) According to Taste of Home, it's all thanks to a TikTok user who was annoyed with a recent viral hack recommending the use of a hair dryer to get rid of crumbs. As she filmed a video showing how she cleans her toaster, she pulled out the mystery tray — and a collective ka-bloom of minds being blown was heard all around the Internet.

Sure, some of you may be shaking your head thinking this is old news, but for those of us who never gave a hard look at our toasters, this comes as a huge discovery.