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Pond Lily Toast

A toast topped with beaten egg white, a yolk, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Pond Lily Toast

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the toast

  1. Toast the slice of bread until light brown.

  2. Butter the toast and moisten it with cream or milk.

Build the egg topping

  1. Beat the egg white with salt until stiff.

  2. Shape the beaten egg white into a round shape and place it on the toast.

  3. Make a hole in the center and place the egg yolk inside.

  4. Salt the yolk and pour a little melted butter over it.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in the oven at 350°F (175°C) until cooked but not browned.

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

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

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

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

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Egg white
Beaten until stiff, it forms a light, airy structure that holds its shape on the toast.
Egg yolk
Sits in the centre of the white and sets when baked, giving a soft, rich centre.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the toast and carries richness into the baked dish.
Cream or milk
Moistens the toast, adding moisture and a mild dairy richness.

The step that matters

Bake until cooked but not browned. Egg white and yolk set with heat, so the dish must bake long enough to cook through. Browning means the proteins have over-toasted and the texture turns dry and rubbery, so the oven should be watched closely.

“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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