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Dessert

French Bread Pudding

A custard-like pudding made from bread crumbs, milk, eggs, sugar, and butter, baked and topped with jelly and meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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French Bread Pudding

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 ↓

French Bread Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. Scald the milk and pour it over the bread crumbs.

  2. Separate the eggs and beat the yolks with the sugar.

  3. Add the yolk mixture, salt, and melted butter to the bread crumbs.

  4. Pour the mixture into a buttered baking dish and set it in a pan of hot water.

  5. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until firm.

Finish with meringue

  1. When cooked, spread with jelly.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then add powdered sugar and beat together.

  3. Cover the pudding with the meringue and bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven until nicely browned.

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.

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. 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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard and set the pudding, while whites whip into the meringue topping.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the hot milk and form the soft body of the pudding.
Milk
Provides the liquid that softens the crumbs and forms the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps stabilize the meringue.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for a softer, more tender texture.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Whites must be beaten until they hold firm peaks, since under-beaten foam collapses and weeps. Adding powdered sugar after whipping helps the meringue stay glossy and stable while it bakes to browning.

“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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