That classic kitchen appliance – the toaster, seems like a very underutilized machine, and many people on the internet thought so too and found ways to use a toaster beyond toasting. It definitely worked at grabbing our attention with seemingly easy and mind-blowing tips and tricks – the problem is – when do these hacks become unsafe? Here are a few of the recent toaster tricks you should avoid.
This quesadilla hack has been pretty popular on TikTok, it demonstrates placing a folded tortilla stuffed with various types of meat and cheeses into a toaster. Based on reaction videos, it is a successful hack…only to a degree. All of the videos demonstrate the hack with very large tortillas that stick out of the toaster itself. If you use smaller or even normal-sized tortillas, you might have the tortilla get stuck in your toaster. The hacks don’t mention the risk of overstuffing and ripping the tortilla, and if that happens, you run the risk of the cheese and filling melting into the elements and burning.
The internet was half amused and half distraught over a steak toaster hack. That is exactly how it sounds – you put two perfectly fine steaks and gray them up in a toaster. Though this may be satirical, people shouldn’t try this even as a joke. To cook a steak with a toaster, you have to keep the toaster on for a long time.
One person recreating the toaster steak said it took over twenty minutes to get the steak to a rare interior. By the time the steak was cooked, the entire toaster was unnaturally hot, and she couldn’t touch the machine, suggesting that the toaster had reached its limits. Not only were toaster steaks missing the nice texture you get from cooking in a pan, but the toaster was also compromised. As the steak is cooked in the toaster, a pool of raw meat juices collects into the crumb pan. Sure you could clean out the crumb pan, but you couldn’t thoroughly remove the raw juices from other parts of the toaster. You could never heat the toaster enough to remove the bacteria. Though many people commented and suggested cooking the steak in a toaster bag, you still run the risk of overheating your toaster and the plastic or materials of the bag can transfer to your food.
A popular full-course breakfast is a little overwhelming to look at because there are so many things unsafe in this video. Like with the steak, putting raw bacon and sausage links into the toaster isn’t safe. Sausage and bacon has fat and the fat drippings can cause electrical sparks within the toaster elements. Even more dangerous were the packets of tin foil filled with eggs. Because of the electrical current, it’s completely unsafe to put things like tin foil into a toaster. It’s easy to see that the hack is fake because the toast comes out at the same time as the meats and eggs, but not everyone watching it can see it’s just entertainment, and might think this video is an actual cooking hack.
Finally, the sideways grilled cheese toaster hack is an easy way to cause a fire. Tipping your toaster sideways pushes the crumbs onto the heating elements, leading to a fire. Worse yet, is the fact that the hack barely melts the cheese to make it a legitimate grilled cheese sandwich.
None of these hacks create better end results, the prep work and dangers of a potential fire outweigh things like washing dishes or using a frying pan.