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Dessert

Bread Pudding

Bread pudding made with stale bread, milk, cinnamon, eggs, sugar, lemon peel, butter, nutmeg, and optional rose water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Bread Pudding

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Boil the milk with the cinnamon sticks, then strain and let it cool completely.

  2. Weigh out ¼ pound of stale bread and grate it.

  3. In a bowl, mix the butter and sugar until well combined.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the eggs, then stir them into the cooled milk along with the grated bread and sugar.

  2. Add the grated lemon peel and rose water if desired.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish and grate nutmeg over the top.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set, then let it cool 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  4. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the pudding its structure and body.
Stale bread
Soaks up the milk and eggs, giving the pudding its soft, custardy texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and keeps the pudding moist.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the custard brown lightly in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to a tender texture and flavor.

The step that matters

Bake until set, then cool. Egg proteins set as the custard heats, so underbaking leaves it runny while overbaking can make it curdled and rubbery. Letting it cool allows the custard to firm up fully before slicing.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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

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