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 ↓
Danish 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).
Make the pudding base
In a bowl, combine bread crumbs, sweet milk, sugar, butter, baking powder, and egg yolks. Mix well and pour into a baking dish.
Bake for 30 minutes.
Top and brown
Spread jelly over the top.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with sugar until stiff peaks form. Spread the beaten egg whites over the jelly and return to the oven until browned.
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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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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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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 absorb the milk to give it a soft, tender structure.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich the base and help bind it as it sets in the oven.
- Egg whites
- Whipped with sugar to form a stable meringue that browns on top.
- Sweet milk
- Provides moisture and liquid that the crumbs soak up while baking.
- Jelly
- Adds a fruity sweetness and a layer between the pudding and the meringue.
The step that matters
Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites only hold air when beaten to stiff peaks, and any trace of fat or yolk prevents this. Well-whipped whites give the meringue its lift and light texture, so under-beaten or greasy whites will collapse or brown unevenly.
“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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