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French Toast

A simple bread dish soaked in salted water, dipped in beaten eggs, and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

French Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak each slice of bread in a bowl of water with a pinch of salt.

  2. Beat the eggs until frothy.

  3. Grease the bottom of a frying pan with butter.

Cook

  1. Dip each slice of bread into the egg and place it in the frying pan.

  2. Pour the remaining egg over the bread.

  3. Cook over medium heat, turning the bread when it is light brown.

  4. Season with pepper and salt to taste.

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. Walnut + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

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

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  4. Walnut + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind to the bread and set when cooked, forming the custard coating.
Bread
Absorbs the egg mixture and provides the structure that holds the dish together.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the surface brown in the pan.

The step that matters

Turning the bread when it is light brown. Turning too early tears the soaked bread, while waiting too long over medium heat can scorch the coating before the egg centre sets.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, egg, pepper):

  1. Peasfits about as well
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Lima beansfits about as well
  4. Pecansfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, egg, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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