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Dessert

Chocolate and Bread Pudding

A baked pudding made from soaked bread, eggs, milk, sugar, chocolate, butter, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Chocolate and 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

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

  2. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  3. Stir in the chocolate and butter until melted.

Make and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the soaked bread with eggs, sugar, and vanilla.

  2. Pour the chocolate mixture over the bread mixture and combine well.

  3. Transfer to a baking dish and bake for 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve cold.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Set the custard and bind the bread into a firm, sliceable pudding.
Soaked bread
Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up the custard for a soft texture.
Milk
Makes the liquid base that moistens the bread and carries the chocolate.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the bitterness of the chocolate.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel to the chocolate mixture.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs set as they heat, so underbaking leaves the custard loose and wet in the centre, while overbaking can make it dry and rubbery. Baking for the stated time at 350°F helps the pudding firm evenly.

“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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