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Dessert

Bread Pudding

Bread pudding made with stale bread, milk, eggs, sugar, spices, butter, and optional raisins, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Bread Pudding

Why it works: Cinnamon and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Bread Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the custard

  1. Soak the bread in the milk.

  2. Beat the eggs, then add sugar, salt, cinnamon, and melted butter.

  3. Pour the egg mixture into the soaked bread and beat well.

  4. If using raisins, cook them until soft and plump before adding.

Bake and serve

  1. Turn the mixture into a buttered pudding dish.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

  3. Serve with hard 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.

  1. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, 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

Bread
Absorbs the custard and sets into a soft, tender body as it bakes.
Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the pudding its structure.
Milk
Soaks into the bread and forms the liquid base of the custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning on the surface.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture.

The step that matters

Cook the raisins until soft and plump. Raisins added raw stay firm and can taste tough, and they may draw moisture from the custard. Softening them first gives even texture throughout the pudding.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinthe original
  4. Applefits about as well

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

More bread pudding recipes

Apple 145Chocolate 53Brown 51Fruit 44Lemon 37Steamed 29 See all 1,021 →

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