Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓
Bread Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the bread and milk
Soak the bread scraps in cold water.
Boil the milk in a saucepan.
Add a piece of butter the size of a nut to the milk.
Squeeze out the water from the soaked bread.
Return the bread to the basin.
Pour the boiling milk over the bread and let it soak until soft.
Prepare the fillings
In a small bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar.
Stone the raisins or wash and dry the currants.
Chop the suet finely after removing the skin.
Mix and bake
Mash the soaked bread until smooth.
Mix in the raisins or currants, chopped suet, eggs, and sugar.
Grease a 1½ pint pie dish and pour in the mixture.
Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until set.
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 + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,155 recipes
Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).
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Bread + raisintop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,111 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bread scraps
- Form the body of the pudding, absorbing the milk to become soft and tender.
- Milk
- Soaks into the bread and provides moisture that keeps the pudding soft as it sets.
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and set on baking to give the pudding its firm, custard-like structure.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the eggs and bread take on a pleasant flavour and colour.
- Raisins or currants
- Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture scattered through the pudding.
- Suet
- Adds richness and fat, giving the pudding a tender, moist crumb.
The step that matters
Bake until set. Pulling the pudding too early leaves the egg proteins unset, so it stays runny in the centre; baking gently until the eggs firm keeps it moist without curdling.
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, egg, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Datesfits about as well
- Raisinthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, egg, sugar. 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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