Milk Toast in the Morning

By Caroline Clough in Food on Apr 6, 2007 3:17PM

Chicagoist first learned about milk toast when we were in college and our diet consisted (generally speaking) of ramen, pizza, orange juice, spinach, cheese and tuna fish. Milk toast couldn't exactly be considered a nutritional improvement over the aforementioned regimen but we did find it strangely romantic and felt slightly turn-of-the-century every time we ate it. Sometimes we pretended that we had consumption and the only thing that would soothe our grieving lungs was a nice order of the stuff. Of course, in retrospect, how good would a lot of milk be for a consumptive? Probably not all that good but that's why pretending is so much better. This is the perfect morning food for children, people with few teeth or anybody who is looking for a little comfort to start out their day.

This is a recipe that serves one.

What You Need:
1 cup milk
1 or 2 slices stale, crusty bread (we had a stale-as-all-get-out baguette on hand and used that)
butter (to spread on the bread)
sugar (to taste)
cinnamon (to taste)

What You Do:

1. If you're not using a baguette-like bread, toast the bread.

2. Heat the milk over low heat.

3. Butter the bread then sprinkle sugar and cinnamon over it to your taste. Place the toast/bread in a bowl.

4. When the milk is hot, pour it into the bowl.

5. Serve.

We find that the baguette doesn't need toasting since it has a very nice outside crust that retains a bit of crunch even when soaked with milk. Other breads may have a less successful crunch retention rate. You want the bread soggy with buttery, sugary, cinnamony goodness but not to the point where it has completely disintegrated.