Skip to main content
Drink

Drinks for Invalids

A coffee-like beverage made by steeping toasted brown bread crusts in boiling water, served with milk or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Drinks for Invalids

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bread

  1. Toast the crusts of brown bread slowly over an open fire until thoroughly dried and dark brown.

  2. Break the toasted crusts into small bits and place them in a coffee pot.

Brew and serve

  1. Pour boiling water over the bread bits and let the infusion steep for 1 hour.

  2. Optionally, add ground Mocha or Java 10 minutes before removing from heat.

  3. After steeping, let the pot stand for a few minutes before serving.

  4. Serve with rich milk or cream for added flavor.

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 + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Rye + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Bread + ryetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together59 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Brown bread crusts
Toasting darkens the crusts, building the roasted, coffee-like color and flavor of the drink.
Boiling water
Hot water extracts flavor and color from the toasted bread bits during steeping.
Rich milk or cream
Adds fat and richness that softens the roasted, slightly bitter taste.

The step that matters

Toasting the crusts until dark brown. Under-toasted crusts give a pale, flat, bready drink, while well-browned crusts develop the roasted flavor through the Maillard reaction and caramelization. Toasting slowly helps them dry and brown evenly without 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.

You might also like

Vegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipesBlackberry CordialBlackberry Cordial129 recipes