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Dessert

Bread and Butter Pudding

A baked pudding made from stale bread, butter, eggs, milk, sugar, and optional raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Bread and Butter 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 ↓

Bread and Butter 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

  1. Cut 1-inch slices from the stale bread and butter them well on one side.

  2. Place the bread in a buttered pudding dish, butter side down.

  3. If desired, parboil the raisins, seed them, and sprinkle between the layers.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs slightly, then add sugar, salt, and milk.

  2. Strain the egg mixture over the bread and let it stand for 30 minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover the dish and bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 1 hour.

  2. Uncover and brown well before serving hot with hard sauce or any plain sauce.

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. Butter + milktop 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. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread
Its dry, porous structure soaks up the custard and holds the pudding together as it sets.
Eggs
They set when baked, giving the pudding its custard-like, tender body.
Milk
It forms the liquid base of the custard, keeping the pudding moist as it bakes.
Sugar
It adds sweetness and helps the top brown during the final uncovered baking.
Butter
It adds richness and helps the bread brown on the surface.

The step that matters

Brown well after uncovering. The bread needs enough time and heat uncovered to develop surface browning, which adds color and flavor through the Maillard reaction. Pale tops mean the browning step was too short or too cool.

Swap the raisin

The recipe marks raisin as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, egg, sugar, milk):

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

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