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Cinnamon Plums with French Toast

This is a doubly gratifying recipe for the waste-averse: the French toast (a slightly fancier take on the eggy-bread of my childhood) is made with the remains of a loaf otherwise too stale to eat and the cranberry-sharp, cinnamon-scented compôte uses up plums that were bought more in the spirit of optimism than good sense. If you’re lucky enough to have a plum tree, this would gratifyingly use up a glut.

By bbcfood · From Open Recipes · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cranberry and plum share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 16 recipes mention both. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 4
Prep30 min
Cook30 min

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Halve and stone the plums. Put the cranberry juice, caster sugar and cinnamon stick in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves.

  2. Add the plums cut-side down to the pan and simmer gently for 10 minutes until just tender. Lift the plums out with a slotted spoon and set aside.

  3. Boil the syrup for 5 to 7 minutes until slightly thickened, then remove and discard the cinnamon stick.

  4. Whisk the eggs, milk, ground cinnamon and 1 tablespoon sugar together in a shallow dish until smooth.

  5. Dip each slice of bread into the egg mixture for 1 to 2 minutes per side so it soaks up the custard without falling apart.

  6. Melt the butter in a large frying pan over medium heat. Fry the bread for 2 to 3 minutes per side until golden and the egg is set, keeping finished slices warm in a 120°C (250°F) oven.

  7. Serve the French toast topped with the poached plums and spoon the warm syrup over the top.

By bbcfood. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Cranberry + plumtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Cranberry + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together116 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  3. Bread + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,145 recipes

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

  4. Milk + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together81,222 recipes

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

  5. Plum + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together462 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the cranberry

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

  1. Vanillabetter flavor fit
  2. Applebetter flavor fit
  3. Figbetter flavor fit
  4. Cranberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, plum, cinnamon, egg, milk, bread, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).