Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Bread Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a steady oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Prepare the rolls
Cut the tops and bottoms off the Vienna rolls and soak them in milk.
Squeeze the soaked rolls dry and place them in a bowl.
Make the custard
Heat the cream with the milk in a saucepan.
In a separate bowl, beat together the eggs, sugar, butter, currants, and orange peel.
Add the mixture to the soaked rolls.
Once the milk and cream boil, pour it over the roll mixture and stir well.
Bake
Transfer to a well-buttered pudding dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 40 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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Currant + orangetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,034 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Milk + orangetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,696 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Vienna rolls
- Provide the bread structure that soaks up the custard and holds the pudding together.
- Milk
- Hydrates the bread and forms the liquid base of the custard.
- Cream
- Adds richness and a smoother, silkier texture to the custard.
- Eggs
- Set when baked, binding the custard so the pudding firms up into a sliceable texture.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the custard brown slightly at the surface.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and keeps the dish from sticking to the pudding dish.
The step that matters
Pour the boiling milk and cream over the roll mixture. Hot liquid helps the bread absorb the custard evenly, while overbaking or overly high heat can make egg proteins tighten and turn the pudding grainy or watery.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cream, egg, sugar, butter, currant):
- Vanillafits better
- Raspberryfits better
- Figfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, egg, sugar, butter, currant. 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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