IllustrationWhy it works: Butter and bread match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,145 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Prepare
Preheat oven to 170 °C (325 °F) or Gas 3.
Butter a 1.1-liter oven-proof dish. Butter the bread, cut off the crusts, and cut the slices into triangles, squares, or fingers.
Assemble and bake
Arrange half the bread in the dish. Scatter dried fruit, mixed peel, and half the sugar over it, then add the remaining bread.
Beat eggs and milk together, pour into the dish. Sprinkle remaining sugar. Let stand at least 30 minutes. Bake 35–40 minutes until set and crisp on top.
This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.
Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.
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Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Butter + breadtop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together27,145 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + milktop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together81,222 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Bread + milktop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together11,363 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Bread + eggtop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together22,584 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + eggtop 8% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together118,511 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Bind the milk and bread into a custard that sets when baked.
- White bread
- Forms the body of the pudding, soaking up the custard as it sits.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that softens the bread and forms the custard with the eggs.
- Butter
- Adds richness and helps the top brown and crisp in the oven.
- Soft light brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the top caramelise and brown.
- Dried fruit
- Adds sweetness and chewy texture scattered through the pudding.
The step that matters
Letting the pudding stand before baking. Standing at least 30 minutes lets the bread absorb the egg and milk mixture. Skipping this leaves dry pockets and a pudding that sets unevenly.
“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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