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Dessert

Brown Bread Pudding

A pudding made from brown breadcrumbs, claret, eggs, sugar, cinnamon, almonds, and cardamom, boiled for 2.5 hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Brown Bread Pudding

Why it works: Cinnamon and cardamom match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,299 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Brown Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then mix in the brown breadcrumbs until combined.

  2. Stir in the claret and let the mixture cool.

  3. Add the beaten eggs, sifted sugar, ground cinnamon, grated almonds, and cardamom seeds, then mix thoroughly.

Cook

  1. Transfer the mixture to a basin and cover the basin.

  2. Boil for 2.5 hours.

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 + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,299 recipes

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

  2. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Almond + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together457 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set it into a firm, sliceable pudding as they cook.
Brown breadcrumbs
Provide the bulk and structure that soaks up the liquid and holds the pudding together.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the pudding a softer, more tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the claret.
Claret
Moistens the breadcrumbs and adds acidity and fruity flavour.

The step that matters

Covering and boiling the basin. The covered basin traps steam so the pudding cooks gently and stays moist. Boiling for the full time lets the eggs set through the centre, so the pudding holds its shape when turned out.

Swap the cardamom

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomthe original
  3. Allspicefits less well
  4. Clovefits less well

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