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Round Cream Toast

A toasted bread dish soaked in milk and corn starch, then simmered.

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 ↓

Round Cream Toast

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the toast

  1. Cut stale bread into rounds using a biscuit cutter.

  2. Place the rounds on a plate and heat them in a 400°F (200°C) oven until warm.

  3. Toast the rounds without burning them.

  4. Dip the toasted rounds quickly in boiling water.

  5. Butter and lightly salt the rounds.

Bake and serve

  1. Place them in a deep dish and cover with scalding milk mixed with 1 teaspoon of corn starch.

  2. Cover the dish tightly and place it in a pan of boiling water in a hot oven for 10 to 15 minutes.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Stale white light bread
Its dry, open crumb soaks up the milk and holds its shape as the base.
Milk
Provides the liquid that gently cooks and softens the bread into a creamy dish.
Corn starch
Thickens the scalded milk so it clings to the toast rather than running off.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the toast brown lightly and taste savory.

The step that matters

Covering the dish and baking in a water bath. Starch thickens milk only when it heats enough, and gentle, even heat from the boiling water bath keeps the milk from scorching or curdling while the bread softens.

“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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