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Dessert

Boiled Bread Pudding

A boiled pudding made from bread crumbs, molasses, butter, fruit, spices, baking soda, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Boiled Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in as little water as possible.

  2. In a bowl, combine soaked bread crumbs, molasses, butter, fruit, spices, baking soda, and flour.

  3. Mix well and pour into a well-greased mold.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil in a pot for 2 hours.

  2. Serve with 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.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Bread + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,383 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Molasses + buttertop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,123 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Form the bulk of the pudding and absorb the liquid to set a moist, tender body.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and a rich flavor to the pudding.
Flour
Helps bind the mixture so it holds its shape when cooked.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to help the pudding rise and lighten.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender texture.
Fruit
Adds moisture, sweetness, and pockets of flavor throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Soak the bread crumbs in as little water as possible. Too much water leaves the crumbs soggy and weakens the structure, so the pudding turns heavy and loose. Using only enough water to soften the crumbs lets them absorb the batter's moisture evenly and hold together when cooked.

“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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