Name: Milton Pudding
Ingredients: 1 pint staple bread, broken into crumbs; 1 quart milk; 2 eggs; ½ teaspoon salt; ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon; 3 tablespoons sugar; 2 ounces chocolate, grated

Why it works: Milk and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,655 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Milton Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Soak the bread, milk, cinnamon, and chocolate in a bowl for 2 to 3 hours.
Beat together the eggs, sugar, and salt.

Bake and serve

Mash the soaked bread with a spoon and mix in the egg mixture.
Pour the mixture into a pudding dish and bake at 300°F (150°C) for about 40 minutes.
Serve with an egg sauce or vanilla cream sauce.

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.

Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Cinnamon + chocolatetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,808 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,404 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, 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

Eggs: Bind the mixture and set it into a custard-like pudding as it bakes.
Bread: Provides the body of the pudding, soaking up the milk to form a soft structure.
Milk: Supplies liquid that softens the bread and forms the custard base.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown lightly in the oven.
Chocolate: Adds flavour and richness as it melts into the soaked milk and bread.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into a pudding dish and bake at 300°F (150°C) for about 40 minutes.. Baking gently at a moderate oven heat lets the egg proteins set slowly into a tender custard. Too much heat or time can overcook the eggs, making the pudding grainy, dry, or curdled.

“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.