“Toasting the nuts really brings out their flavor!”

English Lesson: Toasting the nuts really brings out their flavor!

You made a really delicious banana nut bread. Your sister-in-law asks how you made it, and so you explain to her the recipe. You describe one step in the recipe like this.

Toasting the nuts really brings out their flavor!

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toasting (something)

"Toasting" is a kind of cooking. It means cooking something with dry heat, usually in an oven or on a grill. You "toast" things like bread and nuts.

(doing something) brings out (something)

To "bring out" a quality means to make that quality stronger or easier to see, taste, etc. In the example above, the speaker says that toasting the nuts "brings out their flavor". That means that it makes the nuts taste better by increasing their natural flavor.

Other examples of "bringing out" something include:

Difficult situations like this really bring out the best in people.

This is a chance for you to go wild and bring out your inner child for a day or two.

Money brings out the worst in us.

"Bring out" is also used quite often to talk about flavors in food, like in the example at top.