Molten on the inside with inches of dry, plain crust, why it's the Sandwich Toastie Maker, now over 40 years old and made world famous by Breville. Launched in 1974 they shifted over 400,000 'stacking sandwich' toasters in the first year alone. I'm sure if I could find stats, they surely by this point would have sold enough to stretch to the moon and back.

The toastie maker is such an institution that there are entire websites dedicated to facts, models and trivia. If you should wish to know th history behind the invention, that blog is where it's at.

In the summer there I had hinted that I was going to do a run of nostalgic food blog posts, Crispy Pancakes, Vienetta Slice, Vesta Curries and the like, but only got as far as this retro sweets post about Curious Candy, so call this my second instalment.

We had bacon & cheese toasties for tea tonight, made with butter on the outside.

How about these novelty toasters? Some double up as pancake or waffle makers too.

So what was your favourite toastie filling?