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Dessert

Bread Pudding

A baked dessert made from soaked bread crumbs, milk, eggs, butter, baking soda, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Bread Pudding

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 ↓

Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in the milk.

  2. Beat the egg yolks until light and stir them into the soaked crumbs.

  3. Add the melted butter and baking soda dissolved in warm water.

  4. Gently fold in the egg whites until well combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a well‑greased pudding dish and cover.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes, then uncover and brown delicately.

  3. Serve immediately before it falls.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and form the soft, custardy body of the pudding.
Milk
Hydrates the crumbs and provides moisture for a tender texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich the batter and help set the pudding into a creamy crumb.
Egg whites
Folded in to add air and lightness, helping the pudding rise and stay tender.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts to lift the batter and promote a lighter rise and browning.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Egg whites hold trapped air that gives lift. Overmixing or deflating them makes the pudding dense, so fold gently until just combined.

“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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