Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓
Bread Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the custard base
Sweeten the milk with sugar and add a few grains of salt.
Pour the boiling milk over the bread-crumbs and add butter.
Cover with a plate and let sit for at least 30 minutes.
Stir in the whisked eggs and flavoring of nutmeg or lemon rind.
Cook
Pour the mixture into a well-buttered mold that holds 1½ pints.
Tie a paper and cloth tightly over the mold.
Boil the pudding for exactly 1 hour and 10 minutes.
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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Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together11,318 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and set into a firm, sliceable pudding as they cook.
- Bread-crumbs
- Provide the body of the pudding, soaking up the hot milk to form a soft structure.
- Milk
- Soaks the crumbs and supplies moisture, giving the pudding a tender texture.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the flavour of the milk and eggs.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, softening the crumb and giving a smoother texture.
The step that matters
Boil the pudding for exactly 1 hour and 10 minutes. Eggs set as they heat, so boiling too long makes the pudding tough and rubbery, while too short leaves it wet and unset in the centre. The tight cover keeps steam in so the pudding cooks evenly.
Swap the lemon
The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, bread, butter, egg, nutmeg, brandy):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Raisinfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, bread, butter, egg, nutmeg, brandy. 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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