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Drink

Toast and Water

A beverage made by steeping toasted stale bread in boiling water, then flavored with lemon, orange peel, currant jelly, or apples.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Toast and Water

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bread

  1. Cut a thick crust of stale bread from a loaf.

  2. Toast the bread until completely browned, but not burnt.

Make the bread water

  1. Pour boiling water into a jug, enough to make your desired drink.

  2. Add the toasted bread to the jug.

  3. Let it stand until cold.

  4. Infuse with lemon, orange peel, currant jelly, or apples for added flavor.

Mug method

  1. Place the bread in a mug.

  2. Cover with boiling water.

  3. Let it stand until cold.

  4. Fill with cold spring water.

  5. Strain.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Orange + appletop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Currant + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Bread + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Lemon + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread
Toasted bread gives the water its browned, toasty flavor and color.
Lemon
Adds acidity and a bright citrus aroma to the water.
Dried orange peel
Its aromatic oils add a fragrant citrus note.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a fruity flavor.
Apples
Add mild sweetness and a fruity body to the infusion.

The step that matters

Toast the bread until completely browned, but not burnt. Browning develops the toasty, roasted flavors that define the drink. Under-toasted bread tastes flat, while burnt bread adds bitter, acrid notes that spoil the water.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, lemon, orange, apple):

  1. Cranberryfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, lemon, orange, apple. 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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