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Dessert

Brown Bread Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with eggs, sugar, almonds, cinnamon, chocolate, citron, grated brown bread, claret or milk, baked in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Brown Bread Pudding

Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Brown 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 mixture

  1. Beat the egg yolks, whole eggs, and sugar together for 15 minutes.

  2. Add the chopped almonds, cinnamon, chocolate, and chopped citron to the mixture.

  3. Soak the grated brown bread in a few spoonfuls of claret or milk.

  4. Add the soaked bread to the bowl.

Prepare the mold

  1. Butter a mold.

  2. Sprinkle the mold with bread crumbs.

  3. Pour the pudding mixture into the mold.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the mold in a pan of hot water.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

  3. Serve with a 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. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Almond + chocolatetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,733 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Add richness and help the pudding set into a tender custard-like texture.
Whole eggs
Provide structure as they set, holding the pudding together when baked.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the eggs whip and stabilize the mixture.
Blanched and chopped almonds
Add body, fat and a nutty flavour that browns lightly in the oven.
Grated brown bread
Forms the base of the pudding and absorbs the liquid, giving it body.

The step that matters

Baking in a water bath. Setting the mold in hot water moderates the oven heat around the eggs. Without it, the edges can overcook and turn rubbery before the centre sets.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Walnutfits less well
  4. Cocoafits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, cinnamon, chocolate, bread, milk, butter. 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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