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Dessert

French Bread Pudding

A custard-like pudding made from sliced bread soaked in milk, eggs, sugar, and currants, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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French Bread Pudding

Why it works: Milk and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,475 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

French Bread Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the custard base

  1. Boil the milk.

  2. Slice the bread and pour the boiling milk over it.

  3. Let the mixture cool.

  4. Beat the eggs.

  5. Add the beaten eggs and sugar to the cooled milk.

Add the currants and bake

  1. Wash, pick, and flour the currants.

  2. Stir the currants into the mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a pudding dish.

  4. Bake for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

  5. Serve with or without sweet 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.

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. Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Bread (in the method)
Soaks up the hot milk and forms the soft, custardy body of the pudding.
Milk
Provides the liquid that softens the bread and sets with the eggs into a custard.
Eggs
Set during baking to bind the pudding and give it a firm, custard-like texture.
Dried currants
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and fruit flavor throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the eggs. Pouring eggs into very hot milk can scramble them, which leaves lumps instead of a smooth custard that sets evenly in the oven.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar. 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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