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 a LA Minute
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the croustades
Slice firm stale bread into ½ inch thick slices.
Use a small round or fluted cutter to cut out croustades, marking the centers with a smaller cutter.
Scoop out the insides of the croustades.
Fry the scooped-out croustades in good butter until pale brown.
Drain and dry the croustades well.
Fill the croustades with hot apple marmalade or any warm preserve, or with minced meat.
Make the Dresden patties
For Dresden patties, pare the crust from French rolls.
Slice off the ends of the French rolls.
Divide the rolls into patties.
Hollow the patties in the center.
Dip the patties into milk or thin cream.
Place the dipped patties on a drainer.
Pour a spoonful of milk over the patties at intervals without breaking them.
Brush the patties with egg.
Sprinkle the patties with crust from the rolls.
Fry the patties until golden.
Fill the patties with minced meat, stewed mushrooms, or oysters.
Serve the patties hot.
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Apple + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,104 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Bread + muttontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,488 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Firm stale bread
- Its dry, firm crumb holds its shape when cut, fried and filled.
- Good butter
- Frying in butter browns the bread surfaces and adds rich flavour.
- Egg
- Brushed on the patties, it sets and browns to a golden glossy crust.
- Milk or thin cream
- Soaks into the rolls, softening them so they fry to a tender interior.
The step that matters
Fry the scooped-out croustades in butter until pale brown. Butter browns at a moderate heat and burns quickly if too hot, so keep it pale. Drying the croustades well afterwards keeps them crisp rather than soggy when filled.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, mutton, milk, egg):
- Vanillafits about as well
- Figfits about as well
- Coconutfits about as well
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, mutton, milk, egg. 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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