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Drink

Toast Oe Cracker Water

A drink made by steeping toasted bread crumbs or crackers in cold water, then straining and flavoring with cream and sugar to taste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Toast Oe Cracker Water

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Toast the bread crumbs or crackers in the oven until very brown, but do not burn.

  2. In a bowl, combine the toasted crumbs or crackers with 1 cup of cold water.

Steep and serve

  1. Let the mixture stand for one hour.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Add cream and sugar to taste.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Bread + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,789 recipes

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

  3. Bread + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,638 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs or crackers
Toasting browns them, and their flavour carries into the water to give it a toasty taste.
Cold water
Soaks up the toasted flavour from the crumbs over the standing time and forms the liquid base.

The step that matters

Toasting the crumbs until very brown, without burning. Browning develops the toasted, roasted flavour that the whole drink depends on. Burnt crumbs turn bitter and carry that bitterness into the water, so the toast should be deep golden brown, not black.

“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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