Skip to main content
Dessert

New England Bread Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with eggs, milk, bread crumbs, sugar, and spices, topped with jelly and meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Coconut and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 979 recipes. Both carry 2-heptanol, which smells bitter, floral. The science ↓

New England Bread Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the custard

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a three‑quart pudding dish, break the eggs and beat until light.

  3. Add salt, sugar, bread crumbs, milk, coconut butter or olive oil, and cinnamon. Mix well.

  4. Bake for about 45 minutes, testing frequently with a knife until no longer milky.

Top and finish

  1. Spread a thick layer of jelly over the top when done.

  2. Beat the egg whites with pulverized sugar to make a meringue and spread it over the jelly.

  3. Return to the oven until the meringue is delicately browned, then remove immediately.

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. Coconut + cinnamontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together979 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  2. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Eggs
Set the custard and add richness and structure as they cook.
Bread crumbs
Soak up the milk and egg to form the body of the pudding.
Milk
Provides the liquid that sets with the eggs into a tender custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the meringue become stable and glossy.
Egg whites
Whipped with sugar to form a light meringue that browns on top.

The step that matters

Testing the custard while baking. Eggs set as they heat, so the pudding is done when a knife comes out clean. Overbaking makes the custard grainy and watery as it weeps liquid.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, bread, milk, coconut, cinnamon. 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.

You might also like

Bread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipes