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German Toast

German Toast is a breakfast dish of bread soaked in beaten eggs, milk, sugar, and salt, then fried until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

German Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the custard

  1. Beat the eggs slightly in a bowl.

  2. Add salt, sugar, and milk; mix well.

  3. Strain the mixture into a shallow dish.

Soak and cook

  1. Soak the bread slices in the mixture until soft.

  2. Heat a well-greased griddle over medium‑high heat.

  3. Cook the soaked bread on the griddle until browned on one side, then turn and brown the other side.

Serve

  1. Serve warm for breakfast, luncheon, or with a sauce for dessert.

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. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set on the griddle to give the toast structure and a custard-like interior.
Milk
Moistens the bread and carries the egg into the soak, keeping the slices tender.
Stale bread
Dry crumb soaks up the egg mixture readily, so the slices hold their shape while cooking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown evenly on the griddle.

The step that matters

Soak the bread until soft. Soaking time controls how much custard the bread absorbs. Too short leaves dry centres, while too long makes slices fragile and likely to fall apart on the griddle.

“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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