Skip to main content
Main

Savory Bread Pudding

A baked dish of bread crumbs, gravy, soup stock, milk, baking soda, minced meat, eggs, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Savory Bread Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in the gravy and soup stock.

  2. Add the boiling milk mixed with baking soda and beat until smooth.

  3. Stir in the minced meat, eggs, pepper, and salt until well combined.

  4. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until set and golden.

  2. Serve directly from the dish with gravy or drawn butter.

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. 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. Bread + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Soak up the gravy and stock to form the body of the pudding.
Eggs
Set the custard-like mixture as they cook, holding the pudding together.
Milk
Adds moisture and softens the crumbs into a smooth, tender texture.
Minced cold meat
Provides savory flavor and substance throughout the pudding.
Gravy
Adds savory depth and moisture to the soaked crumbs.

The step that matters

Beat the boiling milk into the crumb mixture until smooth. Hot milk softens the crumbs and helps them absorb liquid evenly, so beating until smooth prevents lumps and dense pockets. Adding the eggs too early or overmixing can also make the texture uneven once baked.

“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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesMeat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipes