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Dessert

Bread Pudding

A custard-like pudding made from stale French rolls soaked in milk, eggs, lemon peel, nutmeg, currants, and brandy.

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

Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Bread Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Soak the bread

  1. Break the crustless French rolls into a basin.

  2. Boil 1 ⅓ cups of milk.

  3. Pour the hot milk over the bread.

  4. Cover and let the bread soak.

Mix the pudding

  1. Whisk the eggs until frothy.

  2. Add the eggs to the soaked bread and beat until smooth.

  3. Mix in the grated lemon peel, nutmeg, currants, and brandy.

Bake

  1. Butter a mold, pour in the pudding, cover, and place in boiling water until done.

  2. Butter a dish, optionally edge with puff pastry, and bake in a brisk oven at 400 °F (200 °C) until set.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. 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

Eggs
Set the custard into a sliceable structure as they cook.
Milk
Makes the custard moist and loose, softening the bread as it soaks.
Stale french rolls
Absorb the custard and form the soft, bready body of the pudding.
Grated lemon peel
Adds fragrant citrus aroma that lifts the rich custard.

The step that matters

Bake until just set. Egg proteins firm as they heat, and overcooking squeezes out moisture and makes the custard curdled and rubbery. Removing it while the centre still trembles lets residual heat finish the set gently.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, lemon, nutmeg, brandy, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, lemon, nutmeg, brandy, butter. 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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