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Dessert

Lemon Toast

A sweet lemon toast made with eggs, milk, powdered sugar, lemon, boiling water, and baked, topped with lemon syrup and jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By North End Club (Chicago, Ill.) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk 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 ↓

Lemon Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Soak and fry

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs, add the milk, and soak the bread in this mixture.

  2. Fry the soaked bread in butter until delicately brown.

Top and brown

  1. Beat the whites stiff with two tablespoons powdered sugar, add a small pinch of baking powder to prevent meringue from falling, and heap irregularly on the toast.

  2. Place the toast in the oven or under the broiler of a gas stove to brown slightly.

Syrup and serve

  1. Make a syrup of boiling water, lemon juice, and granulated sugar and pour it carefully around the toast.

  2. Garnish with spoonfuls of bright jelly—crab apple or quince.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

743Calories
28 gProtein
15 gFat
124 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By North End Club (Chicago, Ill.). 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. See the original page.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the soaking custard; beaten whites form the airy structure of the meringue.
Milk
Adds moisture and carries the egg custard that soaks into the bread.
Bakers bread
Soaks up the custard and, once fried, gives a firm base for the topping.
Butter (in the method)
Fat that fries the soaked bread, adding richness and golden browning.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the meringue and helps the whipped whites hold their shape.
Lemon
Lemon juice adds acidity and bright flavour to the syrup.

The step that matters

Browning the meringue. Sugar in the meringue browns quickly under high heat, so it needs watching. Brief exposure gives a light colour, while longer heat can scorch the sugar and dry the topping.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, bread, egg, milk. 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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