Skip to main content
Main

French Toast

A bread dish fried in a beaten egg and cream mixture, served warm with syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

French Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Add the cream, sugar, and salt, and mix well.

  3. Dip the stale bread slices into the egg mixture, ensuring they are well coated.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat butter and lard in a skillet over medium heat.

  2. Fry the coated bread slices until they are rich brown on both sides.

  3. Serve warm with syrup.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Cream + syruptop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set when cooked, binding the slices and giving the coating structure.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the inside of the bread soft.
Sugar
Sweetness, and sugars help the surface brown in the pan.
Stale bread
Absorbs the egg mixture well, providing the base that turns golden when fried.
Butter and lard
Fat for frying that conducts heat and promotes browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Fry until rich brown on both sides. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction and sugar caramelisation at the surface, which needs steady medium heat. Too hot and the outside burns before the custard inside sets; too low and the slices soak up fat and turn pale and soggy.

“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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes