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Dessert

Baked Bread Pudding

A sweet pudding made by baking sliced buttered bread with eggs, milk, sugar, currants, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Baked Bread Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cut the bread into thin slices and butter them.

  3. Layer the bread in a 3‑pint baking dish, sprinkling grated nutmeg and currants between layers.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs, then add sugar and milk; mix well.

  2. Pour the egg mixture over the layered bread and let it stand for 15‑20 minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 30 minutes until set and golden.

  2. Serve hot with "Fairy Butter".

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

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

  3. Nutmeg + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Currant + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard so the pudding holds together when baked.
Milk
Forms the liquid custard that soaks into the bread and keeps the pudding moist.
Bread
Provides the structure that soaks up the custard and holds the layers together.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown as it bakes.
Currants
Add pockets of sweetness and chew between the bread layers.

The step that matters

Bake until set and golden. Eggs thicken as they heat, so underbaking leaves a runny custard while overbaking can make it dry and rubbery. Look for a firm centre and a golden top.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, nutmeg, egg, bread):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, nutmeg, egg, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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