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Dessert

Plain Bread Pudding, Baked

A baked pudding made from stale bread soaked in milk, butter, spices, sugar, baking soda, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Plain Bread Pudding, Baked

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Plain Bread Pudding, Baked

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.

Soak the bread

  1. Break the stale bread into pieces and place in a bowl.

  2. Pour the boiling milk over the bread and add the butter.

  3. Cover the dish tightly and let it cool.

  4. Once cool, mash the mixture until fine.

Make the custard

  1. Stir in the cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar, and dissolved baking soda.

  2. Beat the eggs until light and fluffy, then add to the mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a well‑buttered pudding dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

  2. Serve warm with hard 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Stale bread
Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up the milk and egg mixture.
Eggs
Set during baking to bind the pudding and give it a tender, custardy structure.
Milk
Provides the liquid that softens the bread and forms the custard with the eggs.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to browning on the surface during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor and keeps the pudding moist.

The step that matters

Let the bread soak and cool before mashing. The bread needs to absorb the hot milk fully and cool so the eggs do not scramble when added. Mashing until fine gives an even texture without lumps.

“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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