Skip to main content
Main

Baked Eggs on Toast

A simple baked dish of eggs on toasted bread topped with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Baked Eggs on Toast

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the toast

  1. Toast the stale bread slices.

  2. Dip the toasted bread in hot salted water and lightly butter them.

  3. Arrange the bread on a platter or deep plate.

Add the eggs and sauce

  1. Break enough eggs to cover the toast, one at a time, and slip them over the toast without breaking.

  2. Sprinkle salt and pepper over the eggs.

  3. Pour thickened gravy or cream sauce over the toast and eggs.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until the eggs are set, about five minutes.

  2. Serve immediately.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Bread + chickentop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,258 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

  4. Butter + chickentop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into a soft, cohesive topping that covers and enriches the toast when baked.
Stale bread
Forms the absorbent base that soaks up moisture and holds the eggs and sauce.
Thickened gravy or cream sauce
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the toast and eggs from drying in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the bread surface and aids gentle browning.

The step that matters

Slip the eggs over the toast without breaking the yolks. Eggs cook quickly once in the oven, so yolks that break early spread out and the whites set unevenly. Keeping each egg whole over its own toast piece gives a neat, evenly set result.

“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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesChicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipes