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Dessert

Swiss Dessert

A fried bread dessert soaked in milk, dipped in eggs, and rolled in lemon zest and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Swiss Dessert

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bread

  1. Cut the loaf of bread into slices about 1.5 inches thick and then cut each slice into three oblong pieces.

  2. Place the pieces on a plate and pour cold milk over them, then let them drain on a sieve.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip each piece into the beaten eggs and fry in hot oil until golden brown.

  2. Roll the fried pieces in a mixture of lemon zest and sugar.

  3. Serve fresh.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  4. Lemon + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 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

Baker's bread
Forms the body of the dish, soaking up milk and egg while frying.
Cold milk
Softens the bread so its interior stays moist after frying.
Eggs
Coat the bread and set during frying, forming a golden crust.
Lemon zest
Adds bright aroma that balances the sweetness of the sugar coating.

The step that matters

Fry until golden brown. Frying in hot oil browns the egg coating and sets it into a crisp crust. If the oil is not hot enough, the pieces absorb more oil and turn greasy rather than crisp.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, egg, vanilla):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, egg, vanilla. 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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