Skip to main content
Dessert

English Bread Pudding

A steamed pudding made from bread crumbs, milk, molasses, raisins, and spices.

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

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

English Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix spices, bread crumbs, salt, and raisins in a bowl.

  2. Dissolve baking soda in a small amount of boiling water and add it to the molasses.

  3. Combine the molasses mixture with the milk and pour it over the bread crumb mixture.

  4. Mix everything well together and steam for 2 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with hard sauce or lemon 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.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  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. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Dried bread crumbs
Form the body of the pudding and soak up the liquid to set a moist, soft texture.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and a deep flavor to the pudding.
Milk
Moistens the bread crumbs so they soften and bind during steaming.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to release gas, helping lighten the pudding.
Raisins
Add pockets of chewy sweetness distributed through the pudding.
Butter or suet
Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist crumb.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in boiling water before adding it to the molasses. Baking soda must be fully dissolved so it reacts evenly with the acidic molasses. Undissolved pockets can leave bitter spots and uneven lightness in the finished pudding.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, molasses, butter, cinnamon, clove):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, molasses, butter, cinnamon, clove. 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

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipes