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Mennonite Toast

A fried bread toast coated in beaten eggs and milk, served hot with powdered sugar.

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

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 ↓

Mennonite Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs well in a bowl.

  2. Add the sweet milk and salt, and mix until combined.

Fry and serve

  1. Cut the loaf of bread into 1-inch thick slices, removing the crust.

  2. Dip each slice into the egg and milk mixture.

  3. Fry the dipped slices in hot lard until golden brown.

  4. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and 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.

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

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Eggs
Bind the milk and bread and set into a custard coating as the slices fry.
Sweet milk
Moistens the bread and carries the egg into a soft, creamy coating.
Bakers' bread
Soaks up the egg mixture, then fries to a crisp golden exterior around a soft center.
Hot lard
Conducts heat to brown the coated bread and adds richness to the crust.

The step that matters

Fry the dipped slices in hot lard until golden brown. If the lard is not hot enough, the soaked bread absorbs fat and turns greasy before the coating sets. Hot fat seals the surface quickly, so the toast browns and stays light inside.

“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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