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.
Make the pudding base
Boil the milk and pour it over the stale bread.
Let the bread soak for 1 to 2 hours.
Rub the soaked bread fine with your hands.
Beat the eggs and add them to the bread mixture.
Stir in the cinnamon, sugar, and butter.
Bake
Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 2 hours.
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.
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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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Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,655 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Cinnamon and sugar 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
- Stale bread
- Dry, absorbent bread soaks up the hot milk and forms the body of the pudding.
- Milk
- Liquid that softens the bread and, with the eggs, sets into a custard-like texture.
- Eggs
- Bind the soaked bread and set during baking to give the pudding its firm structure.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the top brown during baking.
- Butter
- Adds fat, which contributes richness and a softer, moister crumb.
The step that matters
Soaking the bread. The bread must absorb the hot milk fully and be broken down well; dry pockets stay tough, while over-soaked bread turns mushy and cannot hold its shape as the eggs set.
Swap the cinnamon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, egg, sugar, butter):
- Cinnamonthe original
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Parsleyfits less well
- Capersfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, egg, sugar, butter. 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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