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Dessert

Bread Crumb Pudding

A baked pudding made from bread crumbs, milk, butter, sugar, lemon rind, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Bread Crumb Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the base

  1. Make bread crumbs by rubbing stale bread through a wire sieve.

  2. In a small saucepan, combine bread crumbs, butter, milk, and grated lemon rind.

  3. Stir over heat until boiling, then simmer for 5 to 7 minutes until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat, add sugar and egg yolk, and mix well.

Bake

  1. Beat the egg white until stiff, then gently fold it into the mixture.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased pie dish, wiping the edges clean.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 10 to 12 minutes until browned.

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.

  1. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Form the bulk of the pudding and absorb the milk to create a soft, thick body.
Milk
Hydrates the crumbs and, once simmered, thickens into a soft custard base.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender mouthfeel to the pudding.
Egg
Yolk helps bind and enrich the base; whipped white is folded in to lighten the texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg white. Stiff egg white traps air that gives lift. Folding gently keeps those bubbles intact, while vigorous stirring would deflate the mixture and leave the pudding dense.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, butter, sugar, egg. 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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