Why it works: Bread and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 32% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,638 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Toast Water
Ingredients
Directions
Brown the slices of bread without burning them.
Pour enough boiling water over the bread to cover it.
Cover closely and let steep until cool.
Strain the water, sweeten to taste, and add a piece of ice to each glassful.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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 + sugartop 32% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,638 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bread
- Browning the slices gives the water a toasty, roasted aroma and flavor.
- Boiling water
- Extracts flavor and color from the toasted bread into the liquid.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness to balance the toasted flavor.
The step that matters
Brown the bread without burning it. Toasting develops roasted flavors through browning, but burnt bread turns bitter and carries that bitterness into the water. Stop when the slices are evenly golden.
“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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