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Dessert

Queen of Puddings

A sweet custard-like pudding made with sugar, bread crumbs, eggs, butter, milk, jam, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Queen of Puddings

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

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the custard

  1. Rub the butter into 1 cup of sugar until well combined.

  2. Beat the egg yolks until very light and mix them with the butter and sugar to form a cream.

  3. Soak the bread crumbs in the milk, then add to the mixture.

  4. Add your choice of flavoring and mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake until set.

  2. Top with jam 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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich and set the custard, giving it a rich, tender structure when baked.
Bread crumbs
Soaked in milk, they absorb liquid and give the custard body and a soft, pudding-like texture.
Milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the crumbs and sets with the eggs into a creamy custard.
White sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps create a smooth, creamy base when creamed with butter.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps form a smooth, creamy base with the sugar.
Jam
Adds sweetness and fruity flavor on top of the baked custard.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Egg proteins coagulate as the custard heats, so underbaking leaves it runny while overbaking can make it curdle or turn watery and tough.

“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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