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French Toast

A dish of bread dipped in beaten egg and milk, then fried until golden.

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

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg until light and mix with sweet milk.

  2. Beat 2 eggs and add sweet milk and sugar.

Fry

  1. Dip the bread slices into the mixture.

  2. Fry on a greased griddle until golden brown.

  3. Fry in the same way.

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. Sugar + french toasttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and sugar 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add richness and structure to the bread coating.
Sweet milk
Moistens the bread and forms the custard-like coating that browns in the pan.
Bread slices
Absorb the egg mixture and become soft inside while the outside fries golden.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the coating brown in the pan.

The step that matters

Fry on a greased griddle until golden brown. The surface needs enough grease and steady heat to brown before the soaked bread turns soggy or burns. Sugar in the batter darkens quickly, so watch the color closely.

“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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