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Dessert

Jam Grutards

Bread slices soaked in sherry, buttered, baked, topped with jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Jam Grutards

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Cut the bread into 1‑inch thick slices, about 2 inches long and 1 inch wide.

  2. Place the slices on a dish.

  3. Pour the sherry over the bread and allow to soak for 1 hour.

Bake and serve

  1. Place a small piece of butter on each slice.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until light brown.

  3. Put a teaspoon of jam on each slice.

  4. Arrange on a paper doily 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.

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. Sherry + strawberrytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together67 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Sherry + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Bread + sherrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together682 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Butter + strawberrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,149 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Forms the base that soaks up sherry and crisps into a toasted, sturdy slice.
Sherry
Soaks into the bread, adding moisture and a fortified wine flavour.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the surface brown and gives a rich flavour.
Strawberry or raspberry jam
Adds sweetness and fruity flavour on top of the baked slices.

The step that matters

Bake until light brown. Baking too briefly leaves the soaked bread soft and damp, while over-baking dries it out and darkens the butter and sugars too far. Watching for a light golden colour keeps the slices crisp but moist inside.

Swap the strawberry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sherry, butter):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Strawberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sherry, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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