Skip to main content
Dessert

A Boiled Bread Pudding

A boiled bread pudding made with milk, raisins, eggs, flour, and baked in a cloth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Leslie · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,155 recipes. Both carry decanoic acid, which smells acides aroma. The science ↓

A Boiled Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bread and milk

  1. Boil a quart of rich milk.

  2. Take a small loaf of baker's bread, such as sold for five or six cents.

  3. Pare off all the crust.

  4. Cut up the crumb into very small pieces.

  5. Put the bread into a pan.

  6. Pour scalding hot milk over the bread.

  7. Cover the pan closely.

  8. Let it steep in hot steam for about three quarters of an hour.

  9. Remove the cover.

  10. Allow the bread and milk to cool.

Make the batter

  1. Beat four eggs till thick and smooth.

  2. Beat into them a tablespoonful and a half of fine wheat flour.

  3. Beat the egg and flour into the bread and milk.

  4. Continue to beat hard till the mixture is as light as possible.

  5. Add half a pound of whole raisins, well floured to prevent sinking, to the mixture.

Prepare the cloth

  1. Use a square pudding cloth which can be opened out.

  2. Make the pudding cloth very thick.

  3. Have ready over the fire a pot of boiling water.

  4. Dip your pudding cloth into the boiling water.

  5. Shake the pudding cloth out.

  6. Spread out the cloth in a deep dish or pan.

  7. Dredge the cloth well with flour.

  8. Pour in the mixture.

  9. Tie up the cloth, leaving room for it to swell.

  10. Tie the string firmly.

  11. Plaster up the opening with flour moistened with water.

Boil and serve

  1. See that the water boils when you put in the pudding.

  2. Keep the water boiling hard.

  3. If the pot wants replenishing, do it with boiling water from a kettle.

  4. Boil it an hour and a half.

  5. Turn it out of the bag the minute before you send it to table.

  6. Eat it with wine sauce, or with sugar and butter, or molasses.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

289Calories
15 gProtein
14 gFat
29 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62

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

By Eliza Leslie. 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 + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

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

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

  3. Raisin + eggtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,556 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Softens the bread and forms the moist body of the pudding.
Bread (in the method)
Provides the crumb structure that holds the pudding together.
Eggs
Thicken and bind the mixture and help it rise lightly when beaten.
Wheat flour (in the method)
Adds body to the batter and helps stabilise it during boiling.
Raisins
Add sweetness and fruit pieces dispersed through the pudding.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling hard. The cloth must be dipped, the pudding put in while the water boils, and the pot kept boiling, because a drop in temperature makes the pudding heavy and sodden. Flouring the raisins helps keep them from sinking to the bottom.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg. 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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes