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Dessert

A Quick Dessert

A quick dessert made by cooking bread crumbs, eggs, milk, and salt in butter, then topping with jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

A Quick Dessert

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix bread crumbs, eggs, milk, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Heat a skillet with butter over medium heat.

  3. Pour the mixture into the skillet and cook like an omelet until set.

  4. Spread jelly on top and serve immediately.

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

Eggs
Set and bind the mixture, giving it a firm, omelet-like structure when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Provide body and starch that soak up the egg and milk for a soft, tender texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, keeping the cooked mixture tender rather than dry.
Jelly
Adds sweetness and fruity flavor on top of the cooked mixture.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture until set. Cooking over medium heat lets the egg proteins set gently. Too much heat can scorch the butter and bottom before the centre firms up, leaving it runny or burnt.

“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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