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French Toast

A dish of stale bread dipped in egg and milk, fried with butter, served with cinnamon sugar or syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

French Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the egg mixture

  1. Beat the egg slightly, then add salt and milk.

Cook

  1. Heat a frying pan and add a piece of butter.

  2. Dip the bread quickly into the egg mixture.

  3. Place the bread in the frying pan and brown one side.

  4. Add a small piece of butter on top, then turn the bread and brown the other side.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately with a mixture of cinnamon and sugar or syrup.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread
Dry, absorbent bread soaks up the egg mixture and holds its shape while frying.
Egg
Sets when cooked, binding the soaked bread into a custardy interior with a firm exterior.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the egg so it coats the bread evenly.
Butter
Adds fat for browning the surface and a rich flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown when it is sprinkled on with cinnamon.

The step that matters

Dip the bread quickly into the egg mixture. Bread that soaks too long turns soggy and falls apart in the pan, while a brief dip lets the surface absorb just enough custard to cook through and brown well.

“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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