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 gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the custard
Soak the bread crumbs in milk until soft.
Beat the eggs and mix with nutmeg, melted butter, and baking soda dissolved in hot water.
Combine the mixture with the soaked bread crumbs.
Bake
Pour into a baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) until well set.
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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Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Stale bread crumbs
- Absorb the milk and custard, forming the soft body of the pudding.
- Milk
- Hydrates the bread and forms the liquid that sets into the custard.
- Eggs
- Coagulate in the oven to set the pudding into a sliceable custard.
- Melted butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender texture.
- Baking soda
- Raises the pH of the custard, aiding browning and softening the crumb.
The step that matters
Bake until well set. Eggs set as their proteins coagulate with heat. Pulling the pudding too early leaves it runny in the centre, while overbaking makes it dry and grainy.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, egg, butter):
- Nutmegthe original
- Cinnamonfits about as well
- Parsleyfits less well
- Capersfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, 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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