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Dessert

Fruit Bread Pudding

A baked pudding made from bread crumbs, eggs, milk, raisins, currants, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,180 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, creamy. The science ↓

Fruit Bread Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, combine the bread crumbs, egg yolks, and sugar.

  2. Gradually stir in the milk until well mixed.

  3. Fold in the raisins and currants.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

  3. Serve warm with 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. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

  5. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

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 milk and egg mixture to give the pudding its body.
Egg yolks
Set the custard as it bakes and add richness.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs and crumbs set in.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the custard.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout.
Currants
Add chewy texture and tart, concentrated fruit flavor throughout.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Egg proteins set as they heat, so the pudding turns firm. Overbaking makes the eggs tighten and weep liquid or turn grainy, while underbaking leaves the custard runny in the center.

Swap the currant

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

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

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