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French Toast

A sweetened bread dish made by soaking slices in egg and milk, then frying in butter and sprinkling 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 in a bowl and add the milk, mixing well.

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

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the soaked bread in butter over medium heat.

  2. Turn the bread until it is nicely toasted on both sides.

  3. Sprinkle white sugar over the toasted bread before serving.

  4. Serve the slices separately or stack them.

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

Eggs
Egg proteins set when heated, giving the bread a custard-like structure and a firm crust.
Milk
Liquid soaks into the bread and turns it moist and tender inside as it cooks.
Bread
Absorbs the egg and milk mixture, holding it until the outside browns and sets in the pan.
Butter
Fat conducts heat to the surface, browning the outside and adding richness and flavour.
White sugar
Sweetens the finished slices and caramelises slightly on the warm surface.

The step that matters

Soak a slice of bread in the egg and milk mixture.. Bread that soaks too briefly stays dry in the middle, while over-soaking makes it soggy and likely to fall apart in the pan. Even soaking gives an evenly moist interior.

“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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