Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Bread Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the mixture
Soak the crumbs of the penny loaf in boiling milk until cool.
Beat the soaked bread very finely with butter and sugar.
Add grated nutmeg and eggs, then mix well for about 30 minutes.
Boil and serve
Tie the mixture in a cloth and boil for 1 hour.
Optionally, add currants before boiling and serve with white wine sauce.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,083 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,147 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Currant + white winetop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together276 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
- Penny loaf crumbs
- Provide the bulk that soaks up the milk and sets into a soft body.
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and help it set as it cooks.
- Milk
- Softens the bread so it beats smooth and holds moisture.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness to the pudding.
The step that matters
Boiling the tied cloth. The mixture must be tied firmly and kept at a steady boil for the full hour, so the eggs set and the pudding holds its shape rather than turning watery or falling apart.
Swap the currant
The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, sugar, nutmeg, egg, white wine, sauce):
- Vanillafits better
- Lemonfits better
- Figfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, sugar, nutmeg, egg, white wine, sauce. 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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