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Dessert

Bread Pudding

A baked dessert made from bread crumbs, eggs, milk, sugar, and jelly, topped with whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Bread Pudding

Why it works: Bread and milk 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 ↓

Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

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

Make the base

  1. Combine bread crumbs, egg yolks, sugar, and enough milk to moisten the bread well.

  2. Spread currant or tart jelly on top of the mixture.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites with 1 tablespoon of sugar until frothy.

  2. Spread the beaten egg whites over the jelly.

  3. Bake in the oven until browned.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  3. Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Bread + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Form the soft body of the pudding, absorbing milk and egg to set into a custard-like crumb.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and help it set into a tender, custard-like texture.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that puffs and browns over the top of the pudding.
Milk
Moistens the bread crumbs so they soften and bind with the yolks.
Currant or tart jelly
Adds a tart, fruity layer that contrasts with the sweet pudding and meringue.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites with sugar until frothy. Whites under-whipped stay runny and will not hold a foam that browns well, while over-whipped whites turn dry and grainy. Sugar stabilises the foam so it holds its shape in the oven.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, sugar, milk. 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.

More bread pudding recipes

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