Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓
Bread and Apple 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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Fill a medium pudding dish with stale bread pieces.
Whisk together the eggs, milk, and sugar until combined, then pour the custard over the bread and let it soak in.
Layer your chosen fruit on top of the pudding.
If using sour fruit, sprinkle it with sugar.
Bake and top
Bake the pudding in the oven until set.
Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, gently mix in the powdered sugar, and spread the meringue over the baked pudding.
Return the pudding to the oven for 1 minute to lightly brown.
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 + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Milk + appletop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,104 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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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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Bread + appletop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,790 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Sugar + appletop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together16,478 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar and apple barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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
- Stale bread
- Absorbs the custard and forms the soft, pudding-like body of the dish.
- Eggs
- Thicken the custard as they set, giving the pudding its structure.
- Milk
- Makes the custard liquid that soaks into the bread and keeps the pudding moist.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard and balances the tartness of the fruit.
- Fruit
- Adds moisture, sweetness, and fresh flavour that contrasts with the custard.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the meringue and helps the egg whites hold their stiff peaks.
The step that matters
Bake the pudding until set. Underbaked custard stays loose and runny, while overbaking makes the eggs curdle and turn grainy. The custard should wobble only slightly in the centre before the meringue goes on.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, egg, milk, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Datesfits about as well
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, milk, 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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