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Dessert

Cold Chocolate Bread Pudding

A chilled chocolate bread pudding made with stale bread crumbs, unsweetened chocolate, sugar, milk, eggs, butter, salt, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cold Chocolate 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 chocolate custard

  1. Add bread, chocolate, and sugar to cold milk, reserving ½ cup of milk.

  2. Cook in a double boiler until a smooth paste forms.

  3. Beat egg yolks until light.

  4. Add reserved milk, salt, and butter to the beaten yolks.

  5. Stir the egg mixture into the hot chocolate mixture.

  6. Cook until thickened.

  7. Add vanilla.

Bake and serve

  1. Turn into a buttered dish.

  2. Bake for 20 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

  3. Cool slightly.

  4. Cover with meringue.

  5. Bake for an additional 8 minutes.

  6. Serve very cold with cream.

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.

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. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  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

Soft stale bread crumbs
Bread crumbs soak up the milk and give the pudding its body.
Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the custard and set it as it cooks.
Unsweetened chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and deep colour of the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the bread and eggs set into a custard.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the custard.

The step that matters

Stir the egg mixture into the hot chocolate mixture. If the eggs are added too quickly or the mixture is too hot, the yolks can scramble. Adding the eggs gradually while stirring tempers them, so the custard thickens smoothly.

“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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