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Bread

French Toast

A bread dish soaked in milk and eggs, fried on a buttered griddle and served with butter and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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. In a bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs, and salt.

  2. Soak the slices of bread in the custard for a few minutes.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a buttered griddle over medium heat.

  2. Place the soaked bread on the griddle and cook until browned on both sides.

  3. Serve with butter and sugar.

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. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard so the bread holds together and cooks into a firm, tender slice.
Milk
Forms the liquid custard that the bread soaks up, keeping the slices moist inside.
Bread
Soaks up the custard and becomes the body of the dish once cooked.
Butter
Fat on the griddle that promotes even browning and adds richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness at serving and helps the exterior brown.

The step that matters

Cook until browned on both sides. Medium heat lets the custard set through the center before the outside darkens. Too hot and the surface burns while the inside stays wet and loose.

“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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