Name: Bread and Butter Pudding
Ingredients: 4 Vienna rolls, sliced and buttered; 4 eggs; 1 cup sugar; 1½ pints milk; 1 teaspoon nutmeg extract; ½ cup currants

Why it works: Milk and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,685 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Bread and Butter Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Butter a pudding dish and lay the sliced rolls in it.
In a bowl, beat together the eggs and sugar.
Add the milk and nutmeg extract to the egg mixture and mix well.

Assemble and bake

Pour the mixture over the rolls, sprinkling currants between the slices.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes.

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.

Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,685 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,475 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Nutmeg + curranttop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,983 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together24,744 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Vienna rolls: Form the bulk of the pudding and soak up the custard to set into a soft, tender texture.
Eggs: Set the custard as they cook, giving the pudding its firm yet creamy structure.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the custard brown lightly on top as it bakes.
Milk: Forms the liquid base of the custard, providing moisture that keeps the pudding tender.
Currants: Add pockets of concentrated sweetness and chewy texture between the bread layers.