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Dessert

Rhubarb and Bread Pudding

A baked dessert made with rhubarb and bread crumbs, sweetened with moist sugar and topped with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Rhubarb and Bread Pudding

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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter a pie dish thickly.

Layer

  1. Cover the bottom with a layer of bread crumbs, about ½ inch thick.

  2. Place a layer of rhubarb on top and sprinkle with moist sugar.

  3. Fill the dish with alternate layers of rhubarb and bread crumbs, ensuring the sides are walled with bread crumbs.

  4. Finish with a top layer of bread crumbs.

  5. Dot the top with small pieces of butter.

Bake

  1. Bake for 30 minutes to 1 hour, until the rhubarb is soft.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Rhubarb + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,852 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Bread + rhubarbtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together66 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Butter + rhubarbtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Form the bulk of the dish and soak up the juices as the pudding sets.
Rhubarb
Provides the tart fruit filling that softens during baking.
Moist sugar
Sweetens the tart rhubarb and helps draw out its juices.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the topping as it melts and browns.

The step that matters

Bake until the rhubarb is soft. Rhubarb is very tart and fibrous, so it must cook long enough to break down and become tender. Underbaking leaves firm, sour pieces and a soggy crumb layer, while the top needs to be checked so it does not dry out.

Swap the rhubarb

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Rhubarbthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, 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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