Cream cheese and Marmite toast fingers

A thin scrape under a thick, generous layer

Easy5 min hands-on · 10 min totalServes 1

Toast fingers spread with a thin layer of Marmite under a thick layer of white cream cheese.

Scales slice by slice. Make as many rounds as you need in the same toaster.

Marmite on toast rarely needs a recipe, except that the ratio matters more than people think. Too much and it overwhelms everything else on the plate. Too little and you cannot taste it at all. The trick here is restraint: a thin scrape under a thick, generous layer of cream cheese, so the toast carries a savoury depth without tipping into anything sharp or salty enough to catch at a sore mouth. Cut into fingers rather than left as a whole slice, it becomes something you can pick at slowly rather than a plate you have to face all at once. It is the kind of small comfort that does not ask to be noticed, and it is on the plate before you have finished deciding whether you want it.

Suits after surgery, a narrowed bowel, chemotherapy diarrhoea, a new stoma, during pelvic radiotherapy, after a low anterior resection

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Ingredients

Contains: Gluten, Milk

2 slicewhite bread
10 gunsalted butter
¼ tspMarmite, a thin scrape
50 gcream cheese, plain, without chive or garlic pieces

Method

Toast the bread until golden on both sides.
Butter the toast right to the edges while it is still hot.
Spread a thin scrape of Marmite over the butter, just enough to tint it dark, not a thick layer.
Spread the cream cheese thickly on top of the Marmite.
Cut each slice into three or four fingers and serve while the toast is still warm.

Watch-points

Keep the Marmite to a thin scrape underneath the cream cheese. A thick layer is too much in one mouthful and too salty for a sensitive gut.
Toast the bread to a light gold rather than dark brown. Hard, dark toast takes more chewing than it is worth. Cut the crusts off as well if your mouth is sore.

Stoma note: The white bread here leans towards thickening, useful if output is running loose.

Make it more nourishing

Use 70 g of cream cheese instead of 50 g for a thicker layer.
Add an extra 10 g of butter underneath the Marmite.
Use full-fat cream cheese rather than a reduced-fat one. It carries about 80 more calories in a 50 g layer and spreads more thickly.

Swaps

Instead of cream cheese, use mascarpone: milder and a touch sweeter
Instead of white bread, use a plain white bagel, split and toasted: sturdier if you want something less delicate

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