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Dessert

English Pudding

A sweet bread pudding made with bread crumbs, raisins, molasses, milk, and a butter-sugar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

English Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the pudding

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Brown the bread in the oven.

  3. In a bowl, combine bread crumbs, raisins, molasses, milk, baking soda, and spices. Mix well.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, cream together the butter and sugar in a separate bowl.

  2. Add the yolk of the egg to the butter and sugar mixture.

  3. Place the bowl in a basin of hot water. Stir constantly until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is smooth.

  4. Once finished, the sauce should be a rich yellow syrup. Transfer it to a serving bowl.

  5. Beat the egg white until stiff. Fold it into the sauce just before serving.

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. Milk + buttertop 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. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and structure that the pudding sets around.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and a deep, sweet flavor.
Egg
The yolk enriches the sauce and the whipped white lightens it.
Butter
Adds richness and smooth body to the sauce.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and dissolves into a smooth syrup with the butter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to lift and lighten the pudding.

The step that matters

Stirring the sauce over hot water. Gentle, constant stirring over hot water dissolves the sugar and keeps the butter and yolk emulsified and smooth. Too much heat can scramble the egg yolk and make the sauce grainy.

Swap the raisin

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

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

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