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Dessert

French Toast

A toasted bread dish soaked in egg and milk, fried in butter, and sprinkled with sugar.

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

French Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the bread as you would for ordinary toast.

  2. Beat the egg well and mix it with the milk.

Cook and serve

  1. Soak a slice of bread in the egg and milk mixture.

  2. Fry the soaked bread in butter until nicely toasted on both sides.

  3. Sprinkle white sugar over the toasted bread.

  4. Serve the slices separately or stack them on top of each other.

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

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Forms the body of the dish and soaks up the egg and milk custard.
Egg
Binds the custard and sets when fried, giving the slices structure.
Milk
Thins the egg into a soaking liquid that moistens the bread.
Butter
Fat for frying that promotes browning and adds rich flavour.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and a light crust on the toasted surface.

The step that matters

Fry the soaked bread in butter until nicely toasted on both sides. Bread soaked in egg and milk can burn on the outside before the custard inside sets. Moderate heat lets the centre cook through while the surface browns evenly.

“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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