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German Toast

A toasted bread dish dipped in milk and eggs, fried in butter, and sprinkled with white sugar.

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

Prepare

  1. Dip each side of the bread slices in milk to soften.

  2. Dip the soaked bread in the beaten eggs.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat butter in a frying pan.

  2. Fry the bread until golden brown on both sides.

  3. Serve sprinkled with white 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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Bread + eggtop 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

Thick slices of bread
Forms the body of the dish and soaks up the milk and egg mixture.
Milk
Softens the bread and adds moisture so the slices stay tender inside.
Eggs
Coat the bread and set when fried, giving a custardy interior and structure.
Butter
Conducts heat in the pan and helps the outside brown richly.
White sugar
Adds sweetness on the finished toast.

The step that matters

Frying until golden brown on both sides. Moderate heat lets the egg set and the surface brown before the centre dries out. Too hot and the outside burns while the inside stays wet.

“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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