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 ↓
White Bread Balls
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the bread base
Take four ounces of bread, remove crust, dice it.
Put half a cup of milk in a saucepan with two ounces of butter and a teaspoonful of sugar, and bring to a boil.
Stir in the bread and continue stirring until it no longer sticks to the pan. Remove from the fire.
Make the dough
When cool, stir in two eggs, one at a time, and a little salt.
Beat the yolks of two eggs with a little salt and one tablespoonful of cold water.
Stir in enough flour to make a very stiff dough.
Roll out the dough as thin as paper and then roll it up.
Let it stand for an hour.
Cut the rolled dough fine with a sharp knife.
Cook and serve
Cook the mixture in boiling water, as described for other balls.
Serve in a cream sauce as a vegetable.
Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)
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
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Flour | 1 cup (125g) all-purpose | 455 |
| Milk | 1 cup (244ml) whole | 149 |
| Butter | 1 tbsp (14g) | 102 |
| Egg | 1 large egg (50g) | 78 |
| Sugar | 1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated | 49 |
| Water | not in our table | 0 |
One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Provides the body of the mixture, soaking up milk to form a soft paste.
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and help it set when cooked.
- Milk
- Adds moisture, softening the bread so it blends into a smooth paste.
- Butter
- Adds fat, giving richness and a tender texture.
The step that matters
Stirring the bread into the milk until it stops sticking. Cooking the bread in the hot milk gelatinises its starch and drives off excess moisture, so the paste becomes firm enough to hold its shape. Stopping too early leaves it wet and loose.
“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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