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Dessert

Bread and Raisin Pudding

A baked dessert made from diced bread, raisins, butter, milk, eggs, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Bread and Raisin 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

  2. In a buttered pan, mix the diced bread with the raisins and scatter bits of butter throughout.

  3. In a bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs, and sugar to make a custard.

  4. Pour the custard over the bread and raisins, ensuring they are covered.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 30-40 minutes until set and golden.

  2. Serve warm.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard into a sliceable, tender pudding as they cook.
Bread
Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up the custard.
Milk
Liquid base of the custard that softens the bread and sets with the eggs.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps it brown lightly at the surface.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist.
Raisins
Add pockets of sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Pour the custard over the bread and raisins, ensuring they are covered.. Bread that stays dry on top will not soak up custard and may burn or stay hard. Fully covering the bread lets it absorb the liquid so the pudding bakes evenly and sets smoothly.

Swap the raisin

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

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

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