Name: Bread and Butter Pudding
Ingredients: sliced citron; a little lemon peel, cut fine; a few chopped almonds; ½ teaspoon grated nutmeg; 4 eggs; ½ cup sugar; 1 quart milk; vanilla extract; bread

Why it works: Almond and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Bread and Butter Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
In a bowl, combine sliced citron, lemon peel, chopped almonds, and grated nutmeg.
Beat the eggs with sugar until well combined.
Add milk and vanilla extract to the egg mixture and mix well.
Layer the bread in a baking dish and pour the egg mixture over it.
Bake in the preheated oven until set.
Serve hot or cold.

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.

Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,115 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Almond + vanillatop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,961 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,187 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Swap the lemon

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

Figfits better
Coconutfits better
Peachfits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, nutmeg, egg, sugar, milk, vanilla, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.