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Dessert

The Putnam Thanksgiving Pudding

A layered bread pudding with raisins, butter, milk, eggs, sugar, and nutmeg, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

The Putnam Thanksgiving 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.

Assemble

  1. Remove the crust from the stale bread and cut it into thin slices.

  2. Spread the slices evenly with butter.

  3. Arrange the bread in a baking dish, buttered side up, as closely as possible.

  4. Cover the bread with a thick layer of stoned raisins.

  5. Add another layer of buttered bread and more raisins.

  6. Finish with the last layer of bread, buttered side down.

  7. Pour enough milk over the bread to fill the dish.

  8. Cover the dish with a plate and weigh it down. Let it sit overnight.

Make the custard

  1. In the morning, drain off the milk and press the pudding to remove excess moisture.

  2. Beat the eggs, sugar, and nutmeg together, then mix with the reserved milk.

  3. Pour the egg mixture over the pudding slowly, allowing it to absorb.

Bake and serve

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

  2. Serve with hard sauce flavored with nutmeg.

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. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread
Dried-out bread soaks up the milk and egg mixture while holding its shape.
Eggs
Set when baked, binding the bread and raisins into a custard-like pudding.
Milk
Soaks into the bread and, mixed with eggs, forms the custard that moistens the pudding.
Stoned raisins
Add pockets of concentrated sweetness and chewy texture between the bread layers.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and adds flavor to the pudding.
Butter
Coats the bread, adding richness and helping the top layers brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Draining and pressing the soaked pudding. Excess milk left in the dish dilutes the egg custard and can leave the pudding soggy. Pressing removes that liquid so the reserved custard is absorbed evenly and the pudding sets firmly during baking.

Swap the raisin

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

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

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