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Bread

French Toast

A sweetened bread dish fried in lard and served with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

French Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the custard

  1. Beat the egg with the sugar.

  2. Stir in the milk.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip the bread slices into the egg mixture.

  2. Roll each piece in bread or cracker crumbs.

  3. Fry in hot lard until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve hot.

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 + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Egg
Binds the custard and helps the bread set and hold together when fried.
Milk
Moistens the bread so the slices soften and cook through in the centre.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown in the hot lard.
Bread slices
Absorb the egg and milk mixture and form the body of the dish.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying and gives the outside a golden, crisp crust.

The step that matters

Fry in hot lard until golden brown. The fat must be hot enough to crisp the coated outside quickly. If it is too cool, the soaked bread absorbs grease, turns soggy and heavy, and the centre may stay wet before the crust browns.

“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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