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Drink

Toast Water

A beverage made by soaking toasted bread in boiling water, served with cream and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Toast Water

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Toast Water

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Toast the wheat bread slices in a 350°F (175°C) oven until well browned.

  2. Break the toasted bread into small pieces and place them in a coffee pot.

Brew and serve

  1. Pour the boiling water over the bread and simmer for five minutes.

  2. Serve with cream and sugar 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.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Wheat + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together209 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Wheat + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together681 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Bread + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,789 recipes

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

  5. Wheat + sugartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,071 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Wheat bread
Toasting browns the bread, and its flavor carries into the water as it steeps.
Boiling water
Extracts flavor and color from the toasted bread while simmering.

The step that matters

Toasting the bread until well browned. Browning develops the roasted, nutty flavor through the Maillard reaction and caramelization. Pale bread gives a flat, weak-tasting water, so the color should be deep before the bread goes into the pot.

“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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