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Dessert

Sippet Pudding

A sweet bread pudding made with sliced bread, eggs, milk, sugar, currants, and nutmeg, baked until set.

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

Sippet 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.

Assemble

  1. Layer thin slices of bread in the bottom of a deep dish.

  2. Strew marrow or butter and a handful of currants or raisins between layers until the dish is full. Ensure currants or raisins are on top.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the eggs and mix with the cooled boiled milk, sugar, and grated nutmeg.

  2. Pour the mixture over the bread layers.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until set.

  2. Serve with wine 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.

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

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

  5. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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, tender structure as they cook.
Bread
Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up the custard.
Milk
Supplies the liquid that soaks the bread and forms the custard with the eggs.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the richness of the eggs and milk.
Currants or raisins
Add pockets of concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs set as they heat, so underbaking leaves the custard loose and watery, while overbaking can make it grainy and dry. Check that the centre has firmed rather than relying on time alone.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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