Have you ever wondered whether you’re making cheese toast using the mathematically ideal method? Of COURSE you have. Luckily, the boffins at England’s Royal Society of Chemistry have your best interests at heart. With the help of the British Cheese Board, they’ve determined how to make the perfect melted cheese on toast. There’s even a brainy-looking formula:
What this amounts to: a 1.8-ounce slice (not cubes or gratings!) of hard cheese (like cheddar), on a slice of white bread 0.4 inches thick, at least 7.1 inches away from the heat source under a 239-degree grill, for four minutes. (This is a bit imprecise, because for some reason the Royal Society of Chemistry uses metric, but around here we are AMERICANS and we use ENGLISH measurements.)
This raises more questions than it answers, really. Is cheddar truly ideal or are other hard cheeses tastier? Why white bread? Will this also work for grilled cheese, which at least in my mind is distinct from cheese toast because it’s not open-faced and involves more butter? Does “under the grill” make no sense to other people or is it just because I can’t cook? Why don’t we use metric? And so forth. It’s a relief that, having produced a formula for ideal melted cheese, science still has questions left to answer.