Toast-water
Ingredients
Directions
Make the toast water
Toast the bread until deep brown, being careful not to burn it.
Drop the toast into a small pitcher with boiling water, cover, and let it cool.
Strain the mixture through fine muslin or flannel before use.
Quick version
For immediate use, place the toast in just enough boiling water to cover it, let it stand for 2 minutes, then strain and add a little cold water.
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
What each ingredient does
- Stale bread
- Toasted crust compounds flavor the water with roasty, nutty, caramel-like notes.
The step that matters
Toast the bread until deep brown, without burning it. Browning through Maillard reactions and caramelization builds the roasted flavor. Burnt bread turns bitter, and that bitterness carries into the water and cannot be removed by straining.
“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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