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Dessert

Lemon Bread Pudding, Baked

A baked pudding made from stale bread crumbs, sugar, lemon rind, cream, milk, lemon juice, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Lemon Bread Pudding, Baked

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. Grate the stale bread very finely.

  2. Mix the bread crumbs with sugar and grated lemon rind.

  3. Add cream and milk, and mix thoroughly.

  4. Stir in the strained lemon juice and beaten eggs.

  5. Butter a pie dish and pour in the mixture.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 1 hour.

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

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

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

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread crumbs
Soak up the liquid and form the soft, pudding-like body of the dish.
Eggs
Set as the mixture bakes, giving the pudding its structure and custard-like texture.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, making the texture smoother and more tender.
Milk
Adds moisture that softens the bread and helps the custard set gently.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and cuts the sweetness of the custard.

The step that matters

Pour in the mixture and bake gently. Eggs set as they heat, so a moderate oven helps the custard cook through evenly without curdling or drying out. Baking too hot can make the eggs scramble and the texture grainy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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