Why it works: Milk and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓
Bread Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the custard
Soak the bread crumbs in milk until soft, then measure them.
Add the egg yolks to the soaked crumbs and beat until light.
Mix in the lemon zest, salt, and sugar.
Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) until the custard sets.
Top and bake the meringue
Whip the egg whites until soft peaks form, then gradually add 1 tablespoon of sugar and continue whipping until stiff peaks form.
Spread jelly on top of the baked pudding and then add the meringue.
Bake the meringue at 350°F (175°C) until it is light brown.
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.
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Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
- Bread crumbs
- Soak up the milk to form the body of the pudding.
- Milk
- Moistens the bread and forms the liquid base of the custard.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the custard so it sets when baked.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into a foam that forms the light meringue topping.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard and stabilises the whipped egg whites in the meringue.
The step that matters
Baking the custard until it sets. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set with heat. Underbaking leaves a runny custard, while overbaking can make it curdle or weep, so the pudding should be baked only until it sets.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, bread, sugar, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Datesfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, bread, sugar, egg. 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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