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French Toast

A breakfast dish of bread dipped in egg and milk batter, fried in lard.

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

French Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg and add a pinch of salt.

  2. Mix in the milk and enough flour to create a thin batter.

Prepare the bread

  1. Cut the bread into slices and then cut each slice in half.

  2. Dip the bread pieces into the batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat the lard in a kettle until it is smoking in the center.

  2. Fry the dipped bread until browned, turning the slices in the lard.

  3. Serve 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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

Egg
Binds the batter and helps the bread set and hold together while frying.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the batter, so the bread stays tender inside.
Flour
Thickens the milk and egg mixture so it coats the bread in a thin, even layer.
Bread
Absorbs the batter and becomes crisp and golden on the outside when fried.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying and browns the coated bread, adding richness.

The step that matters

Heat the lard until it is smoking in the center. Fat that is not hot enough lets the batter-soaked bread soak up grease and turn soggy. Enough heat sets the coating quickly and browns it, so the inside stays moist.

“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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