A toaster is a small electric appliance that uses heat to turn bread into toast. Toasters typically have slots for bread and heating elements to toast the bread to the desired crispiness level. Here are some more things to know about toasters: Before electric toasters, people would toast bread by holding long-handled metal frames of bread slices over a fire. The pop-up toaster was invented in 1921. The word "toaster" comes from the words "toast" and "-er" and was first recorded between 1575 to 1585 and 1695 to 1705. Toasters can also toast bagels and some pastries. Less sophisticated toasters use a bi-metallic strip that turns off the electromagnet when it heats up. This can cause the first piece of toast to be darker than usual and the second batch to be too light. Some toasters have elongated slots that can toast two slices of bread at once. They may also have a bread and roll rack that can be raised and lowered to toast thicker slices of bread or other pastries.