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Drink

To Make Toast and Water

A simple beverage made by soaking toasted stale bread in boiling water.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the toast

  1. Toast the bread until deep brown on both sides, avoiding burning.

Infuse and serve

  1. Place the toasted bread in a deep jug.

  2. Fill the jug with boiling water and cover it.

  3. Let it stand until cold, or longer if using cold water.

  4. Strain through a fine sieve before serving.

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 browns the bread, and the browned crust flavours the water with a toasty aroma.

The step that matters

Toasting the bread until deep brown without burning. Browning through the Maillard reaction and caramelisation builds the toasty flavour. Burnt spots add bitter, acrid notes that carry into the water, so the bread should be deep brown, not black.

“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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