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 ↓
Croustades, or Sweet Patties
Ingredients
Directions
Slice the stale bread into ½ inch thick pieces.
Use a small round or fluted cutter to cut out croustades.
Mark the centers with a smaller cutter, leaving an equal rim.
Scoop out the insides of the bread.
Fry the croustades in good butter until pale brown.
Drain and dry the croustades well.
Fill them with hot apple marmalade or warm preserve, or with minced meat if desired.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Bread + muttontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,488 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Bread + appletop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,790 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Butter + appletop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,706 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Butter + muttontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,781 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, mutton):
- Applethe original
- Red currantfits about as well
- Figfits about as well
- Coconutfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, mutton. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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