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Drink

Burnt Toast Water

A beverage made by steeping burnt toast in boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Burnt Toast Water

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.

  1. Toast the bread in the oven at 400°F (200°C) until burnt and very black.

  2. Place the burnt bread in a pitcher and add the boiling water.

  3. Cover the pitcher and let it stand until cold.

  4. Strain the mixture when ready to use.

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread
Toasting it to near-black gives the water a dark color and a charred, toasty aroma.
Boiling water
Extracts flavor and color from the charred bread into the liquid as it steeps.

The step that matters

Toast the bread until very black. Bread that is only lightly toasted gives little flavor or color to the water. Charring the bread fully develops the roasted, bitter notes that define the drink.

“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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