Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓
Boiled Bread-Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Soak the grated bread in hot milk for 1 hour in a covered basin.
Beat the soaked mixture with the eggs until well combined.
Cook and serve
Transfer the mixture to a covered basin, tie it in a cloth, and place it in boiling water.
Cook for 30 minutes.
Serve with salt or sugar, and flavor with sherry if desired.
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.
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Bread + milktop 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).
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Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,479 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
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Bread + sherrytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together682 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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 hot milk to set into a soft crumb.
- Hot milk
- Softens the bread and provides the moisture that keeps the pudding tender.
- Eggs
- Bind the soaked bread and set during cooking to give the pudding its structure.
The step that matters
Cook for 30 minutes. The mixture must sit in gently boiling water so the eggs set evenly. Cooking too hard can make the pudding rubbery or cause it to break apart, while too little heat leaves it wet in the centre.
“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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