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Milk Toast

Milk Toast is a simple dish of toast soaked in hot milk, optionally thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Milk Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare hot crisp toast or twice-baked bread.

  2. In a pitcher, combine hot milk with salt.

Make the thickened milk

  1. Mix flour and a little milk to make a smooth paste.

  2. Heat the remaining milk.

  3. Add the flour mixture.

  4. Boil for 5 minutes while stirring constantly.

  5. If using skim milk, add butter or bacon fat after the gravy is prepared.

Serve

  1. Pour the salted milk over the toast in hot bowls or deep saucers as needed.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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, and the flour thickens it into a creamy, gravy-like sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, gravy-like sauce when cooked with stirring.
Toast
Soaks up the salted milk, giving the dish its body and substance.
Butter or bacon fat
Adds richness and fat to the sauce, optional when using skim milk.

The step that matters

Boil for 5 minutes while stirring constantly. Flour must be cooked to thicken properly and lose its raw starchy taste. Constant stirring prevents lumps and scorching on the bottom of the pan while the milk thickens.

“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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