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Dessert

Excellent Bread Pudding

A sweet bread pudding made with bread crumbs, milk, eggs, sugar, lemon rind, and butter, baked and served with preserve or jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Excellent Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Combine one pint bread crumbs, one quart milk, yolks of four eggs beaten lightly, one small cup sugar, grated rind of a lemon, and butter the size of an egg.

  2. Mix all together and bake.

Finish and serve

  1. When cool, spread with preserve or jelly.

  2. Beat the whites of two eggs with one tablespoon powdered sugar and juice of lemon; brown lightly, serve with whipped cream.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

731Calories
27 gProtein
14 gFat
120 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

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. See the original page.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
Provides the body that soaks up the milk and holds the pudding together.
Milk
Supplies the liquid that moistens the crumbs and sets into a custard with the eggs.
Eggs
Their proteins set when baked, giving the pudding structure and richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Lightly browning the beaten egg whites. Sugar and egg white proteins brown quickly under heat, so the topping can scorch before it is evenly golden. Watch it closely and stop as soon as it turns light gold.

“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

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