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Drink

Toast Water, or Crust Coffee

A beverage made by steeping toasted stale bread crusts in boiling water, sweetened and served cold with ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Toast Water, or Crust Coffee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Toast stale bread crusts until dark brown, being careful not to burn them.

Steep and strain

  1. Place the toasted crusts in a large pitcher and cover with boiling water.

  2. Cover the pitcher and let steep until cold.

  3. Strain the mixture and sweeten to taste.

Serve

  1. Serve with a piece of ice in each glass.

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 crusts
Toasted crusts provide the brown color and roasted, toasty flavor of the coffee substitute.
Boiling water
Extracts the toasted flavor and color from the crusts into a drinkable liquid.

The step that matters

Toast the crusts until dark brown. Toasting builds the roasted flavor and color through browning reactions. Pale crusts give a weak, bready drink, while burnt crusts add a bitter, acrid taste that carries into the coffee.

“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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