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Dessert

Bread and Butter Pudding

A baked dessert made with bread, butter, currants, egg, sugar, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Bread and Butter Pudding

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 and Butter Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Butter the slices of bread and layer them in a pie dish.

  2. Sprinkle currants between each layer and on top.

Custard and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the beaten egg, sugar, and milk.

  2. Pour the mixture over the bread and butter.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Let it stand for a while 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.

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

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

  2. Butter + milktop 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. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Currant + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Slices of bread
Form the structure, soaking up the custard as the pudding bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the bread brown on its surface.
Currants
Add pockets of sweetness and chewy texture between the bread layers.
Egg
Sets the milk mixture into a custard that holds the pudding together.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown in the oven.
Milk
Provides the liquid that soaks the bread and forms the custard.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture over the bread and butter. The bread needs time to absorb the egg and milk custard before baking. Pouring evenly and letting it soak helps the layers stay moist and set uniformly instead of leaving dry patches or a soggy base.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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