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Breakfast

Breakfast

A simple breakfast of cocoa served with buttered bread and a glass of milk with a biscuit.

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 ↓

Breakfast

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Prepare a cup of cocoa.

  2. Serve with a slice of bread spread with butter.

  3. Alternatively, have a glass of milk with a biscuit.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Cocoa + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Bread + biscuittop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together319 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Cocoa
Gives the drink its chocolate flavour and deep brown colour.
Bread
Provides a starchy base that holds the spread and soaks up flavour.
Butter
Adds fat, giving richness and a soft, smooth mouthfeel.
Milk
Adds liquid, mild sweetness from lactose, and creaminess to the drink.

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, milk, biscuit):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Pecansfits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, milk, biscuit. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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