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Dessert

An English Baked Bread Pudding

A baked bread pudding made with grated bread, butter, sugar, candied lemon peel, milk, bitter almonds, wine, 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 ↓

An English Baked Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the milk and shredded bitter almonds over boiling water.

  2. Cut the lemon peel into small, thin strips and add to the bread.

  3. Mix in the butter and sugar.

  4. Once a film forms on the milk, pour it over the bread mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. When cool, add the well-beaten eggs.

  2. Bake in a pudding dish or buttered mold for 45 minutes.

  3. Serve with or without sauce.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

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 help it set into a firm, sliceable custard as it bakes.
Bread
Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up the milk and eggs.
Butter
Adds richness and a soft, tender crumb to the pudding.
Milk
Moistens the bread and, with the eggs, forms the custard that sets in the oven.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs only when the mixture is cool. Eggs begin to set when heated, so adding them to hot milk or bread can scramble them and leave a grainy texture instead of a smooth, even custard.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Peasfits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Cocoafits about as well

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