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Dessert

Bread and Butter Pudding

A baked pudding made from buttered bread, raisins, milk, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Bread and Butter Pudding

Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Bread and Butter 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. Spread butter on each slice of bread.

  2. Layer raisins between each slice.

  3. Pour 2 cups of milk over the layered bread and let it soak for a while.

Make the custard

  1. Beat 4 eggs and stir them into the remaining milk.

  2. Pour the egg mixture over the pudding.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until set.

  2. Serve with 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. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Wheat + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together209 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard, holding the soaked bread together as the pudding firms.
Milk
Provides the liquid that soaks into the bread and forms the custard base.
Wheat bread
Gives structure and soaks up the custard, becoming tender as it bakes.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy pockets of moisture throughout the pudding.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the bread brown lightly on the surface.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Egg proteins firm as they heat. Underbaking leaves a runny custard, while overbaking makes the eggs curdle and turn rubbery.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wheat, bread, butter, milk, egg. 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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