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Dessert

Bread Pudding

A custard-like pudding made from soaked bread crumbs, milk, sugar, raisins, butter, and eggs, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Bread Pudding

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 the base

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in milk for 1 hour.

  2. Squeeze the soaked bread crumbs to a pulp.

  3. Mix the pulp with 1½ cups of milk.

Make the mixture

  1. Add sugar, raisins, melted butter, and egg yolks; mix well.

  2. Beat the egg whites to a froth and fold into the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 40 minutes.

  2. Serve with wine sauce, hot or cold, according to taste.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Form the body of the pudding and soak up the milk and butter.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help bind the pudding as it sets.
Egg whites
Whipped to a froth, they lighten the mixture and help it rise in the oven.
Milk
Softens the bread and makes the custard base that sets during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, giving a tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and aids gentle browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped egg whites trap air that gives lift. Stirring them in vigorously knocks out that air, so the pudding bakes denser and flatter.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

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

More bread pudding recipes

Apple 145Chocolate 53Brown 51Fruit 44Lemon 37Steamed 29 See all 1,021 →

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