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French Toast

A bread dish made by soaking slices in beaten eggs, milk, salt, and sugar, then frying in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

French Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the eggs slightly.

  2. Add salt, sugar, and milk to the eggs and mix well.

  3. Soak the slices of bread in the mixture.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a skillet and add butter.

  2. Cook the soaked bread until browned on both sides.

  3. Serve with additional butter.

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. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Egg + breadtop 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

Eggs
Bind the milk and bread together and set into a tender, custard-like coating when cooked.
Milk
Adds moisture and softens the bread while helping the coating cook through.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown in the pan.
Bread
Soaks up the egg mixture and becomes the main body of the dish.
Butter
Adds fat for frying, promoting even browning and a rich flavor.

The step that matters

Cook the soaked bread until browned on both sides. Bread that is too wet or cooked over low heat can stay soggy inside. Medium heat lets the egg set and the sugar caramelize into a golden crust before the center is over-wet.

“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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