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Fried Toasts

Fried Toasts are slices of loaf soaked in cream, eggs, wine, nutmeg, and sugar, then fried in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fried Toasts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the crumb of a two-penny loaf into round or oblong pieces, nearly 1 inch thick.

  2. Soak the pieces in cream mixed with eggs, white wine, nutmeg, and sugar for 4-5 hours.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the soaked pieces in butter until light brown.

  2. Serve with a sauce made of wine and 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  4. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the cream soak and help the toasts set and hold together when fried.
Cream
Soaks into the bread, adding richness and a moist, tender interior.
Butter
Fries the toasts, adding fat that browns the surface and flavour.
White wine
Adds acidity and flavour to the soak and the sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the soaked pieces in butter until light brown. Soaked bread is wet and fragile, so the pan must be hot enough to brown the outside quickly while the custard inside sets. Too low a heat lets the toasts soak up fat and fall apart before they colour.

“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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