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Dessert

A Fine Bread Pudding

A custard-like pudding made from bread crumbs, milk, sugar, eggs, lemon, and topped with whipped egg whites and jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

A Fine 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.

Prepare the base

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

  2. Combine bread crumbs, milk, sugar, egg yolks, lemon rind, and butter in a bowl; mix well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake until set.

Make the meringue and finish

  1. In another bowl, whip the egg whites until soft peaks form.

  2. Gradually beat in powdered sugar and lemon juice until stiff peaks form.

  3. Spread jelly or jam over the baked pudding.

  4. Top the pudding with the whipped egg whites.

  5. Return the pudding to the oven.

  6. Bake until the top is lightly browned.

  7. Serve cold with cream.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Lemon + raspberrytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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 soak up the milk and eggs.
Milk
Provides liquid that sets with the eggs into a soft custard.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard so the pudding sets softly and holds together.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that forms the light topping and browns in the oven.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the meringue and stabilizes the whipped egg whites.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for a tender, smooth texture.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites need to be whipped until stiff and glossy, with sugar added gradually, so the foam holds its shape and bakes into a light, stable topping. Underwhipped whites will weep or flatten; overwhipped whites turn grainy and dry.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, sugar, egg, butter, raspberry, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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