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Dessert

Plain Bread Pudding, Baked

A baked pudding made from stale bread, milk, butter, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, soda, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 10 ingredients
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Plain Bread Pudding, Baked

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Plain Bread Pudding, Baked

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bread

  1. Break up about a pint of stale bread after cutting off the crust.

  2. Pour a quart of boiling milk over the bread.

  3. Add a piece of butter the size of a small egg.

  4. Cover the dish tightly and let it stand until cool.

Make the custard

  1. Mash the mixture with a spoon until fine, adding a teaspoonful of cinnamon and a teaspoonful of grated nutmeg, half a cupful of sugar, and a quarter teaspoonful of soda dissolved in a little hot water.

  2. Beat up four eggs very lightly and add them last.

Bake and serve

  1. Turn the mixture into a well-buttered pudding dish and bake for three-quarters of an hour.

  2. Optionally, the pudding may be steamed or boiled; both are acceptable.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

851Calories
28 gProtein
27 gFat
123 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 8 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 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
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
Waternot in our table0

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

By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann. 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.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Stale bread
Forms the body of the pudding, soaking up the milk to give a soft, absorbent structure.
Milk
Provides the liquid that softens the bread and keeps the pudding moist as it bakes.
Eggs
Set when heated, binding the bread and milk into a firm, custard-like pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown lightly in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the flavour and softens the crumb.

The step that matters

Beat the eggs lightly and add them last. Heat sets the egg proteins and binds the soaked bread and milk into a custard. Adding the eggs last, beaten only lightly, keeps the mixture evenly combined without overworking it or making the texture tough.

“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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