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 bread crumbs in boiling milk until cool.
Beat the mixture with butter and sugar until fine.
Add grated nutmeg and eggs.
Mix well for about 30 minutes.
Cook and serve
Tie the mixture in a cloth.
Boil for 1 hour.
Optionally, add currants.
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
- Bread crumbs
- Soak up the hot milk and form the body of the pudding.
- Milk
- Softens the bread and keeps the pudding moist as it cooks.
- Eggs
- Set when heated, binding the pudding into a firm, sliceable mass.
- Butter
- Adds fat, enriching the texture and giving a softer crumb.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the butter and eggs.
The step that matters
Tie the mixture in a cloth. The cloth must be tied firmly so the pudding keeps its shape and boiling water cannot soak into it. Egg proteins set as the pudding heats, so the mixture holds together once cooked through.
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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