Do you know how to empty your toaster's crumb tray? Let's hope so.
TikTok Users Just Discovered the Toaster Crumb Tray
Published on Oct. 21, 2024
There’s one thing that TikTok users love above all else, and that’s a sense of discovery. People scroll to learn about trends like fridgescaping, watch creators test viral recipes and, apparently, realize that they’ve been using their toasters wrong. Yup, TikTok is teaching folks about the toaster crumb tray.
Where is the crumb tray?
TikTok creator @kacie_thebigcleanco posted a video on TikTok featuring the crumb tray. In the video, her voiceover says, “There are cleaning ‘hacks’ going around the internet that are not really hacks at all. They make it harder. I’m a professional cleaner, and this week I was sent one: ‘Clean your toaster with a hair dryer!'”
This refers to an odd piece of cleaning advice that makes its way around the internet every few years. It says that blowing a hair dryer into the toaster slots will push loose food down into the crumb tray for easy removal. But, as Kacie says, “just tip it in the bin.”
She wipes crumbs off the top of the toaster, removes the crumb tray from down below and empties it in the trash before replacing it. Kacie also gives the entire toaster a quick shake over the garbage to dislodge the remaining crumbs—no hair dryer required.
Ironically, her video intended to show how easy cleaning a toaster can be, sans elaborate “hacks.” But that’s not what viewers took from it.
“Wait? Toasters have trays?” wrote one commenter. “There’s a TRAY?!?!?!?!!” wrote another. “Do all toasters have that?” asked yet another.
Is there a hidden crumb tray on every toaster?
The Mirror is even riffing on this TikTok video, using it as the jumping-off point to discuss the “hidden” toaster compartment that’s “blowing people’s minds.” This compartment isn’t a secret, though. It’s always been there, and it slides out easily from underneath the slots so you can tidily remove the crumbs.
To say that it’s “always” been there isn’t even that much of a stretch. The automatic pop-up toaster as we know it came about in the 1920s, and by 1939, General Electric had filed a patent for the toaster’s slide-out crumb tray.
If you’ve never noticed the tray, that’s probably because it’s located on the short end opposite from the side that has the levers and buttons. But it should indeed be there—it’s too effective not to build into virtually every model. Even my $12 generic toaster from Target has this simple and effective feature.
How often do you empty the crumb tray?
This depends entirely on how often you use your toaster, and what you toast in there. If you’re eating everything bagels on the daily, check it about once a week. If you use your toaster sporadically like me, check the tray every half-dozen uses and be sure to dump out any crumbs you find. No need to do anything more extensive than that for regular maintenance, but do clean out your crumb tray, or the crumbs will build up and lead to acrid, burnt bits that risk catching on fire in the toaster.
We live in a (literally) golden age of toast innovation. As long as you treat your appliance right, you should be able to enjoy avocado toast, panzanella salads and open-faced tuna melts without incident.
