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Bread Pudding

A custard-like pudding made from stale bread soaked in milk, eggs, and sugar, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the custard

  1. Soak the stale bread in the milk for at least 30 minutes.

  2. Beat the eggs for 1-2 minutes.

  3. Add the sugar to the eggs and stir in the soaked bread and milk.

  4. Butter a pudding dish and pour in the mixture.

  5. Dot the top with small bits of butter and grate nutmeg over it.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20-25 minutes.

  2. Serve hot or cold.

  3. For a richer pudding, use 5 eggs and add currants or raisins.

  4. For variation, layer fruit jelly on top after baking and cool.

  5. Cover with meringue made from egg whites and powdered sugar, and briefly brown in the oven.

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

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

  5. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Stale bread
Soaks up the milk and egg, forming the soft, custard-filled body of the pudding.
Eggs
Set when baked, binding the custard so it holds its shape while staying tender.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that the bread absorbs and the eggs set into custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps it brown lightly on the surface.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps keep the top from drying out.

The step that matters

Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20-25 minutes. Eggs set through heat, so the custard firms as it bakes. Removing it too late can leave the pudding dry and overcooked, while too early leaves it runny in the centre.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, egg, sugar, butter, nutmeg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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