Skip to main content
Dessert

Bread Pudding

A custard baked bread pudding with raisins, nuts, and a jelly and meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Bread Pudding

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Bread Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the custard

  1. Remove the crust from the bread, dip it in water, and squeeze out the excess.

  2. In a bowl, mix the eggs and sugar until well combined.

  3. Add the soaked bread, milk, butter, and vanilla to the egg mixture.

  4. Slice and butter the bread cubes, then add them to the custard and let it stand for 15 minutes.

  5. If the custard is not fully absorbed, add more bread.

  6. Stir in the raisins and nuts.

Bake and top

  1. Pour the mixture into a shallow buttered pan, about 1 inch thick, and bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C).

  2. Once cool, spread jelly on top about 1 inch thick.

  3. Beat the egg whites to make meringue, then spread it over the jelly and let it brown slightly.

  4. When cool, cut into slices and serve like cake.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Butter + breadtop 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. Vanilla + nutstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 into a sliceable structure as they cook.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the eggs thicken and that soaks into the bread.
Bread
Absorbs the custard and forms the body of the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the richness of the eggs and milk.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that forms the meringue topping and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake the custard in a slow oven. Eggs set gently at moderate heat. Too much heat makes the custard curdle, weep, or turn rubbery, so the pudding should be baked low and slow.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pecansfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, milk, butter, vanilla, bread, raisin. 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.

More bread pudding recipes

Apple 145Chocolate 53Brown 51Fruit 44Lemon 37Steamed 29 See all 1,021 →

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipesBread Crumb CakesBread Crumb Cakes30 recipes