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 ↓
Bread Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Soak the crumbs
Pour the hot milk over the bread crumbs and let it sit covered for about 1 hour.
Mix
Add the beaten egg yolk, flower water, nutmeg, and sugar, then mix well.
Cook
Tie the mixture in a cloth and boil, steam, or bake for 45 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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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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Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,997 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Rose + nutmegtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,067 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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 crumbs
- Soak up the hot milk and form the body of the pudding.
- Milk
- Softens the crumbs and provides the moisture for the pudding.
- Egg yolk
- Sets as it heats, binding the pudding and enriching its texture.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness to the pudding.
The step that matters
Keep the cooking gentle. The egg yolk sets as it heats. Too fierce a boil, steam, or oven can make the pudding grainy, tough, or dry.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, egg, rose, sugar):
- Cinnamonfits about as well
- Nutmegthe original
- Allspicefits less well
- Gingerfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, egg, rose, 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.
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