Skip to main content
Drink

Toast Water

A drink made by toasting bread crumbs, steeping them in cold water, then straining and adding cream and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Toast Water

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Toast Water

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Toast the bread crumbs until very brown.

  2. Pour cold water over the toasted crumbs and let stand for 1 hour.

  3. Strain the mixture and add cream and sugar to taste.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Bread + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,789 recipes

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

  3. Bread + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,638 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

Bread crumbs
Toasting browns the crumbs, giving the water a toasted, roasted flavour.
Cold water
Steeping the toasted crumbs in water extracts their flavour into a light liquid.
Cream
Adds richness and a softer, rounder mouthfeel to the thin liquid.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the toasted, slightly bitter flavour of the crumbs.

The step that matters

Toast the bread crumbs until very brown. Toasting develops browning flavour through the Maillard reaction and caramelisation. Pale crumbs give a flat, bready taste, so the colour should be deep before steeping.

“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

Vegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipesBlackberry CordialBlackberry Cordial129 recipes