No. 3283

Toasts, Dry, Buttered, Dipped in Water, Milk or Cream

Tranches de Pain Grillees, Beurrees, Trempees Soit a l'Eau, au Lait ou a la Creme

Dry.—Slices of bread cut from square American loaves, about three and a half inches in size by three-eighths in thickness, laid on a double broiler and toasted over a low fire, then arranged on a hot plate.

Buttered.—After the bread is toasted spread one side over with butter.

Dipped in Water, Milk or Cream.—Toast the bread, then lay the slices in a deep dish and moisten sufficiently to cover the bread with hot water, this being called dipped toast; or else with hot milk, making milk toast; or hot cream, this being called cream toast.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Four variations on one operation, written for a hotel kitchen where toast was made over coals rather than in a slot. The measurements matter more than they look: the thickness and the moistening time are the whole recipe.

Slice dimensionsThree and a half inches square by three-eighths of an inch thick — roughly a 9 cm square, just under 1 cm thick. That is a shade thicker than standard sandwich bread, and the stated size implies trimming the slice down to a neat square, which is why a modern sliced loaf gives a floppier result in the dipped versions.
The double broilerA hinged wire toaster with two grids that clamped the bread and could be flipped whole, held over the fire by its handle. A gas flame, a cast-iron grill pan or an oven broiler rack about 4 inches from the element all reproduce it; a pop-up toaster works for the dry and buttered versions but browns too evenly for the others.
"A low fire"Low heat is deliberate. The bread should dry through as it colours so the interior can absorb liquid without collapsing. Fast, dark toasting leaves a damp centre that turns to paste the moment it meets hot milk.
The hinge: moisten, do not soak"Moisten sufficiently to cover" means pour on just enough hot liquid to cover the bread; Ranhofer gives no standing time. Toast left sitting in milk for long disintegrates; the point is a crisp edge with a softened middle.
Serve the liquid hot and the plate hotterRanhofer specifies a hot plate for the dry toast and hot liquid for the rest. Milk or cream at a bare simmer, poured over toast on a warmed dish, is what keeps the dish from going tepid before it reaches the table.
Seasoning is left to youNo salt, sugar or nutmeg appears here. Milk toast in nineteenth-century American household cookery was often salted and sometimes buttered as well; add salt to the milk before pouring if you want it tasting of anything.
YieldNo yield is given. Two to three squares per person as a breakfast or invalid dish is a reasonable estimate, with just enough hot liquid to cover the bread for the dipped versions.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer put this in The Epicurean (1894) not because toast needed explaining but because a Delmonico's kitchen ran on standardised instructions: every cook had to produce the same square, the same thickness, the same degree of colour, and had to know which of four named things a waiter's order meant. His note that the bread comes from "square American loaves" reads as a French-trained chef writing in New York; the flat-topped pan loaf was a well-established American commercial form, and its uniform slices were exactly what a hotel wanted. Milk toast and cream toast were common in nineteenth-century sickroom and nursery cookery, food for weak stomachs and small children, and they turn up in household manuals throughout the century; dipped toast, made with plain hot water, is the plainest rung of that ladder.