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 ↓
German Toast
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut nice slices of loaf bread.
Beat the eggs in a bowl.
Cook
Dip each slice of bread in the beaten eggs, coating both sides.
Fry the coated bread in hot butter until golden brown.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Loaf bread
- Forms the body of the dish and soaks up the egg mixture.
- Eggs
- Coat the bread and set when cooked, giving structure and a custardy interior.
- Butter
- Fat for frying that promotes browning and adds rich flavour.
The step that matters
Fry the coated bread in hot butter until golden brown. Butter that is hot enough sets the egg coating quickly and browns the surface. If the pan is too cool, the bread absorbs more butter and turns soggy before it colours.
“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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