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German Toast

A thick slice of bread soaked in milk and beaten eggs, fried in butter and sprinkled with white sugar.

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 ↓

German Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bread

  1. Cut thick slices of bread.

  2. Dip each side in milk to soften.

  3. Dip in beaten eggs.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat a frying pan and add enough butter to coat the bottom.

  2. Fry the bread until brown on both sides.

  3. Serve sprinkled with white sugar.

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. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Forms the body of the dish and absorbs the milk and egg mixture.
Milk
Softens the bread so it absorbs the egg more evenly.
Eggs
Coat the bread and set when fried, giving a custardy interior and a firm crust.
Butter
Conducts heat in the pan and promotes browning on the surface.
White sugar
Adds sweetness to the finished toast.

The step that matters

Frying the bread until brown on both sides. Medium heat and enough butter let the egg set and brown evenly; too high heat can scorch the outside before the centre cooks through.

“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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