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Dessert

Queen Pudding

A custard-like bread pudding made with bread crumbs, milk, eggs, sugar, fruit jelly, cream, and sifted sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Queen Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the custard

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a saucepan, heat the milk and sugar until dissolved.

  3. Add the bread crumbs and stir until combined.

  4. Beat the eggs and mix them into the bread mixture.

  5. Pour the mixture into a baking pan, about 1 inch deep.

  6. Bake until barely set.

Top and finish

  1. Spread the fruit jelly or marmalade over the top.

  2. Whip the cream until soft peaks form, then spread it over the jelly.

  3. Sprinkle sifted sugar on top and bake until light golden.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  4. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 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

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the pudding its structure and body.
Milk
Provides the liquid that softens the bread and forms the custard base.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the custard, giving the pudding its soft, tender body.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps it dissolve smoothly into the milk.
Cream
Adds richness and a soft, creamy layer over the jelly.

The step that matters

Bake until barely set. Eggs keep setting from residual heat after leaving the oven. Pulling the pudding when only barely set keeps it tender and prevents a rubbery, curdled texture.

“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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