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Dessert

Bread Pudding

A sweet pudding made from stale bread, milk, eggs, raisins, molasses, and salt, baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the custard

  1. Soak the stale bread in hot water.

  2. Beat the eggs and stir in the milk, then pour over the soaked bread.

  3. Add the raisins and mix well.

Bake

  1. Bake in an earthen crock at 300°F (150°C) for 4 to 5 hours.

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. Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  4. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  5. Bread + raisintop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,111 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread
Soaks up the custard and gives the pudding its body and structure.
Eggs
Set as the pudding bakes, binding the bread into a tender, sliceable custard.
Milk
Provides the liquid that moistens the bread and forms the custard base.
Raisins
Add pockets of concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
New orleans molasses
Adds sweetness, deep color, and a caramel-like flavor to the pudding.

The step that matters

Baking low and slow. Egg proteins set gradually as the custard heats. Baking at a low temperature for a long time sets the center smoothly without curdling or drying the bread at the edges.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinthe original
  4. Datesfits about as well

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