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Dessert

Bread Cakes

A sweet cake made from toasted bread crumbs, milk, cream, egg, and baking powder, fried on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Bread Cakes

Why it works: Bread and milk 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 ↓

Bread Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Toast the dry bread until light brown and chop it finely.

  2. In a bowl, combine the sweet milk, thick cream, beaten egg, and salt.

  3. Mix the baking powder with the flour and add it to the bread crumbs.

  4. Stir in enough of the milk mixture to create a thin batter.

Cook

  1. Fry the batter on a hot griddle until brown and cooked through.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Dry bread
Forms the bulk of the cake, giving body and a toasted flavour.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps it set as it cooks.
Sweet milk
Supplies the liquid that turns the crumbs into a thin batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking so the cakes rise and lighten.
Thick cream
Adds fat for richer flavour and a softer, tender texture.

The step that matters

Fry the batter on a hot griddle until brown and cooked through. If the griddle is too cool, the cakes absorb grease and stay wet inside before the starch and egg set. Too hot, and the outside browns before the centre cooks through.

“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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