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Cinnamon Toast

A toasted bread with butter, cinnamon, and powdered sugar, broiled until the sugar melts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Cinnamon Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the fresh white bread into ½ inch thick slices.

  2. Toast one side quickly until golden.

Top and broil

  1. Spread butter thickly on the un-toasted side.

  2. Mix cinnamon and powdered sugar, then spread generously on the buttered side.

  3. Dot with small pieces of butter.

  4. Place in the oven with the broiler on full, on the lower rack.

  5. Watch closely until the mixture melts and browns, then remove.

Serve

  1. Cut the toast into strips or halves and serve with tea.

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. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar 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

Butter
Melts over the topping, adding richness and helping the sugar and cinnamon brown.
Powdered sugar
Melts and caramelises under the broiler, adding sweetness and a browned crust.
Cinnamon
Provides the warm, aromatic flavour of the topping.
Fresh white bread
Forms the base that holds the topping and toasts under the heat.

The step that matters

Watching under the broiler. Sugar goes from melted to burnt in seconds under a broiler's intense direct heat. Removing the toast as soon as the topping bubbles and browns prevents bitterness and scorching.

“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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