Forget planking. All the cool kids are putting their cats in bread and taking pictures of them looking like little yeasty lions. "Breading" is a throw-back to the old Japanese "putting-food-on-rabbits" meme of the early viral web, but with a modern twist.

The wacky meme of breading cats has exploded in recent months, propelled by the internet. There's an official Facebook page with more than 9,000 likes, and a popular post on the hip blogging platform Tumblr. So, it is now an official meme according to Internet Law.

Update: Check out our best breading pictures.

But you don't want to just go sticking your cat's head in bread willy-nilly.

Here's how to bread your cat:

1) Take a piece of bread (If this is your first time, use a soft white bread. Experienced breaders will use rye or even multigrain.)

2) Cut a hole approximately 1 inch larger than your cat's head. This trips some people up. Remember: the bread has to fit around the not just the cat's head, but it's ears, too.

3) Gently place the bread around your cat's head.

4) Take a picture. Post it to the official in-bread cat Facebook page.

I'd estimate that breading cats is about 40% up the meme curve, bumping around the lower reaches of the internet—Buzzfeed hasn't even begun to shamelessly exploit it yet—so now is the time to get in. Next week you can scoff at the inevitable Today Show segment, after you've been so over breading for like three days.

Send us your pictures or videos of in-bread cats: Adrian@gawker.com. Or leave them in the comments!

Update: here is the first breading picture I received, from Matt Dennis.

Matt writes that cat's name is Boots Riley and "surprisingly enough, he wasn't mad at me for doing this..."

And make sure you read The best tweets about breading.

[Images via Lightrup]