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Dessert

Cream Toast

Cream Toast is toasted bread soaked in a thickened milk and cream mixture seasoned with salt.

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

Cream Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. In a thoroughly buttered saucepan, combine milk and cream with salt.

  2. Bring to a boil, then add flour mixed with cold milk.

  3. Boil until smooth and thick like custard, stirring constantly.

  4. Move the saucepan to a cooler place.

Assemble and serve

  1. Dip each slice of toasted bread in the cream and arrange on a platter.

  2. Pour the remaining cream over the toast.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  4. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Cream + breadtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,789 recipes

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Flour
Thickens the milk and cream into a smooth, custard-like sauce as it boils.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smooth, velvety texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens when the flour is cooked.
Stale bread
Soaks up the thickened cream, giving the toast a moist, tender center.

The step that matters

Boil until smooth and thick, stirring constantly. Flour must be stirred while the liquid boils so it disperses evenly without lumps. Starch needs to reach boiling to fully thicken, so the sauce is cooked through and not pasty.

“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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