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German Toast

A sweet toast made from stale bread soaked in egg and milk, baked, and topped with a butter-sugar-sherry sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

German Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Soak and dry the bread

  1. Beat the egg in the sweet milk.

  2. Dip the stale bread slices in the egg and milk mixture and let them soak for about 1 hour.

  3. Lay the soaked bread on a board to dry.

Bake the bread

  1. Bake the bread on a pancake griddle until golden brown.

Make and serve the sauce

  1. For the sauce, mix the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the beaten egg yolk, sherry, and the beaten egg whites to the butter mixture.

  3. Serve the sauce hot over the baked bread.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  5. Sherry + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 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

Stale baker's bread
Forms the base that soaks up the egg custard and turns golden when baked.
Sweet milk
Supplies the liquid that soaks into the bread and keeps it moist.
Egg
Binds the milk into a custard that sets on the bread and adds richness to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce and helps the bread brown.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and aids browning on the bread.
Sherry
Adds a fortified wine aroma and flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Soaking the bread. Stale bread absorbs the egg and milk mixture well, but soaking too long lets the crumb collapse and turn soggy. Soak until the slices are saturated yet still hold their shape before drying.

“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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