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Dessert

Bread Pudding

A custard-like dessert made with bread crumbs, raisins, milk, eggs, spices, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Bread Pudding

Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Pour the boiled milk over the bread crumbs.

  2. Add the ground cinnamon, ground mace, sugar, and wine or whisky.

  3. In a separate bowl, cream the butter with the sugar.

  4. Combine the creamed butter mixture with the bread mixture.

  5. Beat the eggs and mix them in thoroughly.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake until set.

  2. Serve with wine and grate nutmeg on top.

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. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (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

Eggs
Beaten eggs bind the mixture and help it set as it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Soak up the milk and give the pudding its body and soft texture.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender crumb.
Boiled milk
Moistens the bread crumbs and forms the liquid base that sets with the eggs.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs set when heated to roughly 160 to 180°F, so underbaking leaves the pudding loose and overbaking makes it dry and rubbery. Watch for a firm centre rather than relying on time alone.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, raisin, milk, egg, cinnamon, sugar, wine. 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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