Why it works: Milk and bread 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 ↓
Fried Bread in Batter
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Dissolve the sweet light dough in sweet milk.
Add the eggs, flour, and salt; mix until smooth.
Fry and serve
Dip thin slices of light bread into the batter.
Fry the battered bread slices in hot lard until golden brown.
Sprinkle with powdered sugar and garnish with jelly before serving.
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.
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Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Bind the batter and help it set and brown during frying.
- Flour
- Thickens the batter so it coats the bread and fries to a firm crust.
- Sweet light dough
- Adds yeast-leavened richness and a soft, lightly airy texture to the batter.
- Sweet milk
- Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and carries the dough into the batter.
The step that matters
Fry the battered bread slices in hot lard until golden brown. If the lard is not hot enough, the batter absorbs fat and turns greasy instead of forming a crisp, golden crust. Frying in hot fat sets the coating quickly.
“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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