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Bread

Toast

A sweet toast made by soaking stale bread in milk, coating with a mixture of crumbs, eggs, butter, sugar, raisins, currants, and nutmeg, then toasting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Toast

Why it works: Raisin and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Toast

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut stale bread into slices ¼ inch thick.

  2. Soak the slices in hot milk.

Assemble and toast

  1. Mix bread crumbs, eggs, butter, sugar, raisins, currants, and nutmeg in a bowl.

  2. Spread the mixture over the soaked bread slices.

  3. Toast the bread over a hot fire until dry and light brown, turning constantly.

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.

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.

  1. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread
Its dry, sturdy structure holds the soaked milk and topping without falling apart.
Hot milk
Soaks into the bread, adding moisture so the slices stay tender while toasting.
Eggs
Bind the topping together and help it set as it heats.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the surface brown during toasting.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the topping brown.

The step that matters

Turning constantly while toasting. Over a hot fire the sugar and milk solids in the topping can scorch quickly. Frequent turning spreads the heat evenly so the bread dries and browns without burning.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, egg, butter, sugar, raisin, nutmeg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, egg, butter, sugar, raisin, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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