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Dessert

Baked Bread Pudding

A sweet pudding made from grated stale bread, milk, sugar, butter, lemon, eggs, and topped with pineapple and a lemon‑sugar meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Gibson, Marietta Fauntleroy Hollyday, "Mrs. C. H. Gibson." · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Baked Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Grate one pint of stale baker's bread.

  2. Pour one quart of cold milk over the grated bread.

  3. Add one teacup of white sugar.

  4. Add a piece of butter the size of an egg.

  5. Add the grated rind of one lemon.

  6. Add the yolks of four eggs well beaten.

  7. Put the mixture in a greased dish and bake.

Top and finish

  1. After the pudding cools, spread some preserved pineapple over it.

  2. Beat the four egg whites to a stiff froth, adding a teacupful of white sugar and the juice of a lemon.

  3. Spread the meringue over the pudding.

  4. Set it in the oven for a few minutes, but do not let it brown.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

845Calories
28 gProtein
26 gFat
124 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12

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

By Gibson, Marietta Fauntleroy Hollyday, "Mrs. C. H. Gibson.". 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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Stale bread
Provides the body of the pudding, soaking up milk to form a soft custard crumb.
Milk
Supplies liquid that softens the bread and sets with the eggs into a custard.
Eggs
Set the custard through heat and their proteins; whites whipped to a froth form the meringue.
White sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the meringue stay glossy and stable.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the pudding a softer, more tender texture.

The step that matters

Set the meringue lightly. Whites must be beaten to a stiff froth so they hold their shape. Brief oven time sets the meringue; longer baking makes it brown or weep and can overcook the custard beneath.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, butter, egg, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, butter, egg, sugar. 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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