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Toast

Toast topped with a ring of beaten egg whites, a yolk center, seasoned, baked, and finished with melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Toast

Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Toast

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut bread into square pieces and toast until light brown.

  2. Separate the eggs, keeping the yolks whole.

  3. Beat the whites until stiff.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the beaten egg whites around each piece of toast in a ring.

  2. Drop the yolks in the center of the white ring on the toast.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Place in the oven for a few minutes until slightly browned.

  5. Remove from the oven.

  6. Pour melted butter over the toast before serving.

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

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

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

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

  3. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites whipped to stiff peaks form a light structure, while the whole yolks sit set in the center.
Bread
Toasted slices give a sturdy base that holds the egg topping.
Butter
Melted butter adds richness and flavor to the finished toast.

The step that matters

Beat the whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped to stiff peaks to hold their shape around the toast. Under-whipped whites spread and run, and over-whipped whites turn dry and grainy. Keeping yolks free of any white helps the whites whip fully.

“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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