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 Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Prepare the bread
Soak the scraps of bread in a bowl of cold water.
Strain the soaked bread and squeeze out the water, then return it to the bowl.
Make the custard base
Boil the milk in a saucepan.
Pour the boiling milk over the bread, adding the sugar and butter if using; let soak until soft.
Beat the eggs with a few drops of flavoring, then add the suet (if using) and washed currants; mix well.
Bake
Pour the mixture into a greased pie dish and bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 30 to 40 minutes.
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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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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Bread + milktop 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 + curranttop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,475 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bread scraps
- Form the body of the pudding, soaking up milk to become soft and tender.
- Milk
- Soaks into the bread and sets with the eggs to give a moist, custardy texture.
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and help it set into a firm, sliceable pudding when baked.
- Moist sugar
- Adds sweetness and a slightly rich, molasses-like flavor.
- Currants
- Add sweet, chewy bursts of fruit throughout the pudding.
- Suet or butter
- Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender crumb.
The step that matters
Squeezing out the soaked bread. Bread holds a lot of water after soaking. If it is not squeezed well, the extra liquid dilutes the custard and the pudding may bake up wet and fail to set firmly.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sugar, milk, egg, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Peachfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, milk, egg, 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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