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Puffed Egg Toast

A toasted bread square topped with a puffed egg custard baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Puffed Egg 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.

Make the custard

  1. In a small saucepan, blend the butter and flour over medium heat.

  2. Add the milk and cream mixture, stirring and cooking for 1 minute.

  3. Remove from heat and beat in the egg yolks, parsley, thyme, salt, pepper, cayenne, and nutmeg.

  4. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture over the buttered toast squares, smoothing the surface.

  2. Brown delicately in a 400°F (200°C) oven and serve immediately.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they trap air and make the topping puff and rise in the oven.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and add richness and a smooth, set texture once cooked.
Butter
Enriches the base and, with the flour, forms the roux that thickens the sauce.
Flour
Combined with butter to form a roux that gives the sauce body and stability.
Milk and cream
Form the liquid base of the sauce, adding moisture and a creamy texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when beaten and are fragile. Folding gently keeps the air in, so the topping puffs in the oven rather than deflating into a dense layer.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk, cream, egg, parsley, pepper):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Thymethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, cream, egg, parsley, pepper. 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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