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Mennonite Toast

A toasted bread dish made with a beaten egg and milk mixture, fried in lard or drippings, served hot with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Mennonite Toast

Why it works: Milk and bread 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 ↓

Mennonite Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the eggs well, then add the milk and salt.

  2. Cut the bread into 1-inch thick slices and remove the crust.

  3. Dip the slices into the egg and milk mixture.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the slices in very hot lard or drippings until golden brown.

  2. Butter the toast and sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
Bind the custard coating and help the bread set and brown when fried.
Sweet milk
Moistens the bread and adds richness to the egg coating.
Baker's bread
Forms the base that soaks up the custard and crisps in the fat.
Lard or drippings
Fries the slices, creating a golden brown crust and rich flavor.

The step that matters

Frying in very hot fat. Hot fat sears the outside of the soaked bread quickly, forming a golden crust before the custard soaks through and makes the toast greasy or soggy. Fat that is not hot enough lets the slices absorb oil and cook unevenly.

“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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