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Snow Flake Toast

A toasted bread dish soaked in a milk, cream, and flour mixture with beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Snow Flake Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the snowflake mixture

  1. Heat the milk, cream, and salt in a pot.

  2. Mix the flour with a little of the hot milk and add it to the boiling mixture.

  3. Cook until the flour has no raw taste.

  4. Beat the egg whites until stiff and gently stir them into the mixture.

  5. Allow the mixture to cook for about 30 seconds until the egg whites coagulate.

Assemble and serve

  1. Dip the toasted bread slices quickly in hot milk and pack them together for 3 minutes.

  2. Pour the snowflake mixture over the packed bread.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and softens the bread.
Egg whites
Set into soft, airy flakes when heated, giving the mixture its light texture.
Flour
Thickens the hot milk so the mixture becomes smooth and holds together.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a fuller mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Allow the mixture to cook for about 30 seconds until the egg whites coagulate. Egg white proteins set when heated, but overcooking can make them rubbery or cause them to collapse. Stopping at the point of setting keeps the flakes soft and light.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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