Name: A Good Bread Pudding
Ingredients: 1 lb bread, cubed; 1 lb suet, shredded; 1 lb currants; 1½ cups milk; 7 eggs; 1 small nutmeg, grated; 3 tablespoons wine or brandy; Sugar, to taste; Sweetmeats (optional)

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 ↓

A Good Bread 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.

Prepare

Boil the milk and pour it over the cubed bread.
In a large bowl, combine the soaked bread, suet, currants, eggs, nutmeg, wine or brandy, and sugar. Mix well until all ingredients are combined.
If desired, fold in sweetmeats.

Bake

Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1½ hours.

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.

Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Currant + winetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,323 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,997 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,685 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread: Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up the milk and eggs to set into a soft crumb.
Eggs: Set during baking to bind the pudding and give it a custard-like richness.
Suet: Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it bakes.
Milk: Soaks into the bread and adds moisture that carries the pudding's texture.
Currants: Provide pockets of sweetness and chew throughout the pudding.

Swap the currant

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Lemonfits better
Currantthe original

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