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 ↓
Dried Peach 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 the base
Boil the milk.
Pour the hot milk over the bread crumbs.
Stir in the butter and stewed peaches.
Let the mixture cool.
Bake
Add the beaten eggs, sugar, salt, and flavoring.
Pour into a well-buttered pudding dish.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + peachtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together781 recipes
Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).
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Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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 pudding into a soft, sliceable custard structure as they bake.
- Bread crumbs
- Absorb the hot milk and give the pudding its body.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that moistens the crumbs and forms the custard base.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
- Dried peaches
- Add fruit flavor, moisture and natural sweetness.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and balances the eggs and fruit.
The step that matters
Let the mixture cool before adding the eggs. Beaten eggs added to very hot liquid can scramble instead of blending smoothly. Cooling the mixture first lets the eggs combine evenly and set into a smooth custard when baked.
Swap the peach
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, bread, butter, egg, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Peachthe original
- Applefits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, bread, butter, 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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