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Dessert

Brown-Bread Pudding

A steamed pudding made from stale brown bread, milk, cream, eggs, vanilla, lemon zest, and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk 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 ↓

Brown-Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut off all the crust from the stale brown bread.

  2. Rub the bread crumbs through a wire sieve into a bowl.

  3. In a saucepan, bring the milk to a boil.

  4. In another pot, bring water to a boil.

  5. Butter a mold well.

  6. Butter a piece of kitchen paper.

Make the batter

  1. In a basin, combine 5 ounces of bread crumbs and 3 ounces of powdered sugar.

  2. Grate the lemon rind over the bread crumbs.

  3. Add the essence of vanilla to the mixture.

  4. Pour the boiling milk over the bread crumbs.

  5. Whip the cream in a basin until stiff.

  6. Stir the whipped cream into the mixture.

  7. Add the yolks of 4 eggs, one at a time.

  8. Whip the whites of 2 eggs until stiff.

  9. Gently fold them into the mixture.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into it.

  2. Place the buttered kitchen paper over the top of the mold.

  3. Place the mold in the boiling water.

  4. Ensure the water reaches halfway up the mold.

  5. Steam the pudding for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  2. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

Vanilla and sugar 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

Brown bread
Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up the custard so it holds together.
Eggs
Set the custard as they cook and whipped whites add lift to the pudding.
Milk
Softens the bread crumbs and adds moisture to the custard.
Cream
Adds richness and a light, tender texture when whipped and folded in.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves easily into the warm crumbs.
Lemon
Its grated rind adds a bright citrus aroma.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. The whites trap air that gives the pudding its lift. Stirring them in vigorously knocks out those bubbles, so the gentle fold should be done just until combined.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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