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 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Break the bread into small pieces and place in a greased deep pie dish.
Make the custard
Cover with boiling milk mixed with suet, sugar, and salt; let it cool slightly.
Beat the eggs and pour them over the bread mixture; mix well.
Smooth the top and add a few pieces of butter or dripping.
Bake
Bake at 400°F (200°C) until 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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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bread
- Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up the milk and egg mixture.
- Milk
- Softens the bread and forms the liquid base that sets into the custard.
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and set when baked, giving the pudding its firm texture.
- Suet
- Adds richness and fat, contributing to a tender, moist texture.
- Butter or dripping
- Melts over the top and promotes browning and a rich surface.
The step that matters
Baking until set. Eggs set when heated, so the pudding must bake until the center firms. Underbaking leaves a loose, wet custard, while overbaking can make it dry and rubbery.
“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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