You may have seen Toastabags as one of the businesses pitched to
Dragons Den UK back in 2008. After watching the episode, I was impressed and intrigued by the product so I decided to add one onto my next Tesco online delivery for a pair of these for a mere £1.69.
The Toastabag is a bag made of a heat resistant material that covers your sandwich so that the whole thing can be heated in your toaster. Covering the sandwich in a bag allow it to be placed in the toaster without everything falling out. The Toastabag makes the process of making a toastie much cleaner and easier than using the oven. And at £1.69 for two of these bags, it is also a lot cheaper and more space efficient than a toastie machine or a panini press. However, the proof is in the pudding. Are Toastabags any good at toasting sandwiches? The results are in after the cut.
Slightly hilarious JML advertising.
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| I love how the sandwich is moving so fast. |
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| Here's the back. |
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| 2 Toastabags. Not bad value for £1.69! |
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| Cheese BLT. |
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| Sandwich fits the bag with a little bit of maneuvering. |
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| The medium sliced bread sandwich fits tightly into a standard size toaster. |
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| The bag itself gets f*cking hot so I used a chopstick to fish it out. |
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| Slightly burnt on the top and no melted cheese! :( |
Thoughts
The Toastabag definitely has a slight learning curve. If you are looking for that melted cheese kind of sandwich, you may end up toasting the thing so long that you accidentally burn the outside a little bit. However on subsequent attempts, I used a technique where I first microwaved the sandwich for 10 seconds to give the cheese a head start to melt, and then proceeded to toast the sandwich using the Toastabag. The resulting toastie is perfect. I thoroughly recommend using the Toastabag as it is a great cheap alternative to dedicated appliances that need counter top space and cleaning. It is also probably the fastest way to make a toastie compared to say, using an oven, which requires preheating and additional cleaning.
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| Perfect! |
The bag itself is reusable and it simple to clean. It's possible to wipe and rinse using a little washing liquid and a sponge. The packaging states that the bags are good for 50 reuses. After the first few uses the bag has started to look a little rough around the edges but still perfectly usable.
I've also read a number of reports about alternative uses for this product, including things like danishes, croissants, fish fingers, etc. If anyone has tried these please leave a comment, as I'd love to hear about it!
