Skip to main content
Dessert

Bread Pudding

A baked dessert made with stale bread, milk, sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla, nutmeg, raisins, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Bread Pudding

Why it works: Vanilla and milk 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 ↓

Bread Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Soak the bread or cake crumbs in the scalded milk and let cool slightly.

Mix and bake

  1. Add the sugar, butter, eggs (slightly beaten), salt, vanilla, nutmeg, and raisins to the mixture.

  2. Turn the mixture into a buttered baking dish.

  3. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for one hour, covering the dish for the first 30 minutes.

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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

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

  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. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

Vanilla and sugar 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
Bind the custard and help it set into a firm, sliceable pudding.
Bread or cake crumbs
Absorb the hot milk and form the soft, tender body of the pudding.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the crumbs soak up and that the eggs set within.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown gently during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.

The step that matters

Bake covered at a low temperature. Eggs set through gentle heat; high heat or uncovered baking too early can curdle the custard and dry the top. Covering the dish keeps moisture in during the first half hour.

Swap the raisin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, vanilla, milk, nutmeg, sugar, butter, 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.

More bread pudding recipes

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

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipesBread Crumb CakesBread Crumb Cakes30 recipes