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Dessert

Brown Bread Pudding

A pudding made from stale brown bread, currants, suet, sugar, eggs, brandy, and cream, boiled for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Brown Bread Pudding

Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Brown Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the grated brown bread, currants, shredded suet, sugar, eggs, brandy, and cream until well combined.

  2. Transfer the mixture into a cloth or basin of an appropriate size.

Cook

  1. Boil for 3 to 4 hours.

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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

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

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

  4. Brandy + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Bread + brandytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together976 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale brown bread
Forms the bulk of the pudding and soaks up the liquid to give it body.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding rich, moist, and tender as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set as they cook, holding the pudding together.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the bread into a smooth texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the richness of the suet and cream.
Currants
Add small chewy pockets of sweet, fruity flavour throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Boiling for 3 to 4 hours. A long, steady boil lets the egg-based mixture set fully through the centre. Undercooking leaves it wet and loose, while a rolling boil that dries out the water can scorch or toughen the pudding.

Swap the currant

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

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

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