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Baked Bread-and-butter Pudding

A pudding of thin slices of buttered bread layered with currants, set in a sweetened egg and milk custard and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and bread 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 ↓

Baked Bread-and-butter Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut 9 slices of bread and butter not very thick.

  2. Put them into a pie-dish, with currants between each layer and on the top.

  3. Sweeten and flavour the milk, either by infusing a little lemon-peel in it, or by adding a few drops of essence of vanilla.

  4. Whisk the eggs well, and stir them into the milk.

  5. Strain this over the bread and butter.

  6. Make the pudding about 2 hours before it is baked, as this improves it.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a moderate oven for 1 hour, or rather longer.

  2. Send it to table in the pie-dish without turning it out.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

743Calories
27 gProtein
15 gFat
121 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12

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

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Milk + breadtop 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. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Eggs
Set the custard so the pudding holds together when baked and sliced.
Milk
Forms the custard base that soaks into the bread and cooks to a soft, creamy texture.
Bread
Absorbs the custard and forms the body of the pudding as it bakes.
Sultanas
Add sweetness and chewy pockets of fruit between the bread layers.

The step that matters

Strain the custard over the bread and butter. Soaking the bread fully before baking lets the custard reach every layer, so the pudding sets evenly instead of leaving dry bread on top or a watery base.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, bread, 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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