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 ↓
A Rich Custard Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
Assemble
In a bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs, and sugar until well combined.
Butter the slices of bread and layer them in the bottom of a baking pan.
Sprinkle raisins over the bread layers until the pan is half full.
Pour the custard mixture over the bread and raisins.
Bake and serve
Bake in the preheated oven until set, about 45 minutes. Allow to cool before serving.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Eggs
- Set the custard, giving the pudding its structure as it bakes.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid custard that soaks the bread and keeps the pudding moist.
- Bread
- Absorbs the custard and provides the body of the pudding.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness to the custard.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness to the bread layers.
The step that matters
Bake until set. Eggs thicken as their proteins coagulate with heat. Pulling the pudding too early leaves a runny custard, while baking too long at high heat can make it curdle or dry out.
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, sugar, bread, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Peachfits about as well
- Raisinthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, bread, butter. 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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