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Dessert

Bread and Butter Pudding.— No. I.

A baked pudding made from bread crumbs, milk, sugar, butter, eggs, sherry, nutmeg, and lemon peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Bread and Butter Pudding.— No. I.

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, combine bread crumbs, milk, sugar, and butter.

  2. Stir over medium heat until the mixture boils.

  3. Remove from heat and add beaten eggs, sherry, nutmeg, and lemon peel.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour into a buttered baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

  2. Serve with a sweet 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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

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

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

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Bread crumbs
Soaks up the milk and gives the pudding its body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs set into a custard.
Eggs
Set during baking to bind the pudding and give it structure.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer texture.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the eggs and sherry.
Sherry
Adds aroma and a rich flavour to the custard.

The step that matters

Add the beaten eggs off the heat. Eggs scramble when they meet a hot mixture that is still boiling. Removing the pan from the heat first lets them blend smoothly, so the baked custard sets evenly and stays silky.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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