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 Pudding
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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Beat the egg yolks until light, then add the milk and mix well.
Stir in the bread crumbs, baking powder, melted butter, and nutmeg gently.
Bake and top
Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for about 20 minutes until set but not watery.
Remove from the oven and spread with currant jelly.
Beat the egg whites until stiff, then add the sugar and spread over the pudding.
Return to the oven to brown lightly.
Serve
Serve with cream or your choice of sauce.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,997 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Egg yolks and whites set the custard and, beaten whites, give the meringue-style topping its lift.
- Bread crumbs
- Soak up the milk and egg to form the soft body of the pudding.
- Milk
- Supplies the liquid that sets with the eggs into a custard.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking to lighten the pudding's texture.
- Melted butter
- Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the beaten egg white topping and helps it brown lightly.
The step that matters
Beat the egg whites until stiff, then add the sugar. Egg whites must be beaten until stiff before the sugar is added, so the foam holds its shape and bakes into a light, stable topping instead of weeping or collapsing.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, egg, butter, nutmeg, milk, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, butter, nutmeg, milk, 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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