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Dessert

Bread Pudding

A baked dessert made with milk, eggs, sugar, bread, and optional raisins, topped with sweetened cream and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Bread Pudding

Why it works: Raisin and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Bread Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

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

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

  2. In a bowl, beat together the milk, eggs, and sugar until well mixed.

  3. Crumble in the bread and crusts until the dish is nearly full, pressing the bread down to avoid dry bits.

  4. If desired, scatter a few raisins on top and sprinkle additional sugar over it.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in the hot oven for 30 minutes.

  2. Once cooled, serve in dessert dishes with sweetened cream and a sprinkle of nutmeg on top.

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.

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.

  1. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the milk and bread together and help the pudding set as it bakes.
Bread and crusts
Form the body of the pudding, soaking up the custard to become soft and tender.
Milk
Forms the liquid custard that soaks into the bread and gives the pudding its moisture.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the top brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Pressing the bread down. Dry pockets of bread stay hard because they do not soak up the custard. Pressing the bread down helps it absorb the liquid evenly so the pudding bakes uniformly.

Swap the raisin

The recipe marks raisin as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, sugar, bread, cream, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, bread, cream, 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.

More bread pudding recipes

Apple 145Chocolate 53Brown 51Fruit 44Lemon 37Steamed 29 See all 1,021 →

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