Battle of The Toast Toppings

Mmmm toast, the nation’s favourite breakfast. Perfect with tea, great with coffee, lovely with melted butter, yummy with baked beans and heavenly with grilled cheese. Toast is one of our most versatile foodstuffs, lending itself to everything from being dipped in eggs to being used to build famous landmarks.

The UK is united in its love for toast, but where we’re divided is in what we like to spread on it in the mornings. So we’ve taken what we think are the country’s most popular toast toppings and pitted them against each other. Forget Brexit or this year’s snap general election, these are the results we’ve all been waiting for.

Jam

Flavour: It’s no longer just about strawberry and raspberry when it comes to jam. Nowadays, you can get everything from bacon jam to chilli jam, and toast is the perfect vessel to try them all out on. There are so many varieties that we have to give it 5/5 for flavour.

Bittiness: Now, this is a downside to jam for some. All those fruit pips can make it bitty, leaving you to spend the day annoyingly trying to get a pesky bit of blackberry out of your back teeth. Some love the crunch the seeds give jam though, so we’re awarding it 2.5/5 for this.

Spreadability: Yes it’s sticky, but other than that it spreads very nicely over your toast. 4/5.

Total: 11.5/15

Marmalade

Flavour: Marmalade is traditionally made out of citrus fruits like oranges, lemons and limes, so you do need to be able to handle a touch of bitterness if you’re going to put this on your toast. For this, we’re giving it 4/5 for flavour.

Bittiness: Marmalade’s bitty, but in a different way to jam. The bits tend to be softened fruit peel or zest rather than seeds, so are a little easier to eat. We’re therefore giving it 3.5/5 in this category.

Spreadability: Sure, marmalade can be gloopy, but aren’t all good spreads? 4.5/5.

Total: 12/15

Category winner: Marmalade! Marmalade’s lack of bits just pipped (see what we did there?!) jam to the post on this one.

Smooth peanut butter

Flavour: Nutty. Peanutty, in fact. But you can get some variations, like PB swirled with chocolate or jam. But some really hate nuts or can’t eat them, so we don’t feel we can quite give it full marks. 4/5.

Bittiness: There is none, it’s smooth! So 5/5 again.

Spreadability: It’s smooth, it spreads like a dream. Full marks yet again.

Total: 14/15

Crunchy peanut butter

Flavour: The same as smooth. So it’s a 5/5 again.

Bittiness: It’s bitty because it’s crunchy. If you like your toast with bites, those pieces of nut are a delight. If you’ve picked up the wrong jar and hate them, it can be a day-ruiner. 3/5.

Spreadability: All those nutty bits can make this one a tad tough to spread on your toast, so we’re going to give it just 2/5.

Total: 10/15

Category winner: Smooth! No bits, spreadable as you like and a rich nutty flavour makes this one a winner.

Chocolate spread

Flavour: Chocolate. Lovely, lovely chocolate. Sometimes with hazelnuts too, but sometimes just chocolate. 5/5.

Bittiness: None! Just lovely, lovely chocolate. 5/5 again.

Spreadability: So spreadable. It melts like a beautiful chocolate dream into warm toast and tastes gorgeously smooth in the mouth *wipes away drool*. 5/5.

Total: 15/15

Biscuit spread

Flavour: Toast toppers inspired by favourite biscuits are popping up more and more on the supermarket shelves, including custard cream and bourbon-flavoured spreads. The taste of a biscuit on a hot slice of toast? That’s 5/5 from us.

Bittiness: There’s a little. Some of these spreads are perfectly smooth, but some contain biscuit pieces. It’s not a bad bittiness, but it means your brekkie will take longer to eat, so we’re going to give it 4/5 here.

Spreadability: Those biscuit pieces can make these spreads quite hard to spread on your bread, which could lead to dreaded toast rips and all that delightful biscuityness falling through a hole. 2.5/5.

Total: 11.5/15

Category winner: Chocolate spread! With full marks in every category, it’s chocolate. Even if you don’t like nuts/have an allergy, there are still plenty of options for you to get in on the action.

Marmite

Flavour: Well, you either love it or you hate it, don’t you? So we’re going to have to go right down the middle with 2.5/5.

Bittiness: It’s smooth and it melts well, so we’ll have to give it 5/5 here.

Spreadability: We can’t fault Marmite in this category, so again, it’ll have to be 5/5.

Total: 12.5/15.

Margarine

Flavour: Buttery. But not as bad for you. Although some find it a little plain, so we’re giving it a very respectable 4.5/5.

Bittiness: None at all. 5/5.

Spreadability: All of the spreadability. It’s often called low-fat spread, the clue’s in the name. 5/5.

Total: 14.5/15

Category winner: Margarine! Marmite is a little too divisive, but it didn’t score at all badly overall.

It’ll be no surprise to many that chocolate spread came out on top. It’s the perfect sweet energy boost to start the day. We know it’s not the healthiest toast topping there is, but just a thin layer on your wholemeal bread finished off with a sliced banana can actually be a very nutritious breakfast, so feed your sweet-tooth and make the mornings something to look forward to.