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Bread Pudding

A simple pudding made by soaking bread crumbs in boiling milk, then adding egg and optional spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Bread Pudding

Why it works: Cinnamon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pour boiling milk over bread crumbs in a bowl.

  2. Let it cool, then add the beaten egg.

  3. Boil the mixture in a basin for 20 minutes.

  4. Add cinnamon, almond, or lemon peel for flavor if desired.

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.

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.

  1. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set as it cooks.
Milk
Softens the crumbs and provides moisture for a tender texture.

The step that matters

Let it cool before adding the egg. Eggs scramble when added to very hot liquid. Letting the milk cool slightly before adding the beaten egg keeps the mixture smooth and prevents curdled specks.

Swap the cinnamon

The recipe marks cinnamon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, bread, egg, almond, lemon):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonthe original
  3. Parsleyfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, bread, egg, almond, lemon. 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.

More bread pudding recipes

Apple 145Chocolate 53Brown 51Fruit 44Lemon 37Steamed 29 See all 1,021 →

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