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 Custard
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.
Make the custard
In a saucepan, heat the milk until it boils.
Add the bread crumbs, butter, lemon zest, sugar, and almonds; stir to combine.
Beat the eggs in a separate bowl.
Remove the saucepan from heat and stir a little of the mixture into the eggs.
Pour the egg mixture back into the saucepan and stir well.
Bake and serve
Pour the mixture into a pudding dish.
Place the dish in a pan of hot water and bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 20 minutes, until firm in the center.
Test with a knife; if it comes out clean, the pudding is done.
If serving hot, add an additional ¼ cup of bread crumbs.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,655 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,245 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Set the custard as they cook, giving it a firm, sliceable structure.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the eggs set into a smooth, tender custard.
- Bread crumbs
- Absorb the liquid and give the pudding body and a soft, bread-like texture.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps balance the richness of the eggs and butter.
The step that matters
Tempering the eggs. Stirring a little hot milk into the beaten eggs before combining gradually raises their temperature. Adding them straight to the hot mixture can scramble the eggs, leaving lumps instead of a smooth custard.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, bread, butter, sugar, almond, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, bread, butter, sugar, almond, egg. 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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