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Soup

Cream of Toast Soup

A soup made by toasting bread in butter, adding flour, boiling water, milk, salt, pepper, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Cream of Toast Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat the butter in a deep frying pan.

  2. Break the bread into small pieces and toast them in the hot butter.

  3. Add the flour and stir until it turns brown.

  4. Slowly pour in the boiling water while stirring.

  5. Add the hot milk, salt, and pepper.

  6. Stir in the well-beaten egg yolks and pour into a soup tureen.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Bread
Toasted pieces give the soup its body and a toasty, browned flavor.
Flour
Browned with the butter, it thickens the liquid and adds a nutty flavor.
Butter
Carries the toasting and browning, adding richness and flavor.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softness to the soup base.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup, adding smoothness and richness.

The step that matters

Stir in the well-beaten egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when heated but can curdle if the soup is too hot or boiling. Add them off the heat or with the soup just below a simmer, stirring constantly, so the soup stays smooth.

“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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