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German Toast

A batter‑coated stale bread slice fried in butter and served with syrup or molasses.

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 ↓

German Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Whisk the eggs, milk, and flour together to make a thin batter.

  2. Dip slices of stale bread into the batter, ensuring they are well coated.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat melted butter in a skillet over medium heat.

  2. Fry the coated bread slices in the butter until they are nicely browned on both sides.

  3. Serve warm with syrup or molasses.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 batter and help set the coating around the bread as it cooks.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the milk and eggs into a batter that clings to the bread.
Milk
Loosens the batter and adds moisture so the bread stays soft inside.
Stale bread
Dry bread soaks up the batter without falling apart, giving a custard-like center.
Melted butter
Conducts heat in the pan and promotes browning and rich flavor on the surface.

The step that matters

Fry the coated bread slices until browned on both sides. Medium heat lets the batter set and brown evenly before the outside burns. Too high a heat scorches the surface while the egg in the center stays runny.

“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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