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Breakfast

American Toast

A toasted bread dish made by dipping bread in beaten egg and milk, then frying and buttering.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

American Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the custard

  1. Beat the egg thoroughly in a bowl.

  2. Add sweet milk and a little salt to the egg and mix well.

  3. Dip slices of light bread into the mixture, allowing them to absorb some milk.

Cook and serve

  1. Brown the soaked bread on a hot, buttered griddle or thick-bottom frying pan.

  2. Spread with butter and serve hot.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Binds the milk and coats the bread so it sets and holds together when browned.
Sweet milk
Soaks into the bread to add moisture and a tender interior.
Light bread (in the method)
Absorbs the egg and milk mixture, then browns to form the toast's crisp outside.
Butter
Fat that browns the bread surface and adds rich flavor when spread on top.

The step that matters

Browning the soaked bread. Bread soaked too long turns soggy and may not brown well. Cooking on a hot, buttered surface sets the egg and browns the outside before the centre becomes wet.

“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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