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Dessert

English Bread Pudding

A sweet pudding made with sliced bread, raisins, currants, milk, eggs, sugar, and nutmeg, baked and served with a milk-sugar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

English Bread Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Butter the bread slices and cut them very thin.

  2. Place a layer of bread and butter in a pudding dish.

  3. Add a layer of raisins and a layer of currants.

  4. Repeat the layers of bread and butter and fruit until all ingredients are used.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, mix the sweet milk, beaten eggs, sugar, and nutmeg.

  2. Pour the mixture over the layered bread and fruit.

Bake and serve

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

  2. For the sauce, mix milk and sugar and serve warm.

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. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  2. Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard so the pudding holds together when baked.
Bread
Forms the layered structure that soaks up the custard as it bakes.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, keeping the pudding moist.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture between the bread layers.
Currants
Add tart, chewy fruit flavour and texture between the bread layers.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs thicken as they heat, so the custard sets into a firm pudding. Underbaking leaves it loose and wet, while overbaking can make it curdle and turn rubbery.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, raisin, milk, egg, coffee, sugar, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, raisin, milk, egg, coffee, sugar, nutmeg. 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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