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French Toast

A dish of bread slices soaked in beaten eggs and milk, fried in lard, and sprinkled with powdered sugar and optional cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,655 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

French Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the custard

  1. Beat the eggs until light.

  2. Stir the eggs into the cold milk.

Fry and serve

  1. Slice the bread.

  2. Dip the bread slices into the egg and milk mixture.

  3. Fry the dipped slices in hot lard until brown.

  4. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and cinnamon if desired.

  5. Serve hot.

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 + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  5. Bread + cinnamontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,705 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Set into the custard that coats the bread and firms as it cooks.
Rich milk
Adds moisture and softness to the custard, so the bread stays tender inside.
Bread
Soaks up the egg and milk mixture, then browns in the hot fat.
Lard
Fries the bread, carrying heat to brown the surface and add richness.

The step that matters

Fry the dipped slices in hot lard until brown. Fat that is not hot enough lets soaked bread absorb grease and cook soggy, while very hot fat can scorch the outside before the custard sets in the centre.

“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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