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Dessert

Bread and Butter Pudding

A baked dessert of sliced apples layered with buttered bread, nutmeg, sugar, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Bread and Butter Pudding

Why it works: Apple and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,790 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Bread and Butter 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.

Assemble

  1. Layer sliced sour apples in a baking dish.

  2. Sprinkle with nutmeg and sugar.

  3. Add a layer of buttered dried bread.

  4. Repeat layers until the dish is filled, starting and ending with apples.

  5. Add enough water to wet the bread.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 1 hour at 350°F (175°C).

  2. Serve without sauce.

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. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Apple + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Sour apples
Provide tart flavor that balances the sweetness and soften into the pudding as it bakes.
Dried bread
Soaks up the water and sugar and sets into a custard-like, tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the apples and bread brown at the edges as they bake.
Nutmeg
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor that complements the apples.

The step that matters

Add enough water to wet the bread. The bread needs enough liquid to soften and bind with the apples. Too little water leaves dry, hard patches, while the baking time sets the moisture into a tender pudding.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, 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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