Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓
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
Soak the crumbled bread in milk.
Layer some soaked bread in the bottom of a pudding dish.
Sprinkle with raisins and a little cinnamon powder.
Add another layer of soaked bread, raisins, and cinnamon powder.
Make the custard
Beat the eggs with the sugar until combined.
Mix in the rum, brandy, or wine.
Pour the mixture over the pudding in the dish.
Bake
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 20 minutes.
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.
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Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,390 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,655 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
-
Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Cinnamon + rumtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together508 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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, binding the soaked bread into a sliceable pudding as they cook.
- Crumbled bread
- Forms the body of the pudding, soaking up the milk and egg mixture.
- Milk
- Moistens the bread and forms the liquid base of the custard.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps balance the eggy custard.
- Raisins
- Add pockets of sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
The step that matters
Pour the mixture over the pudding in the dish.. The bread must be fully saturated with the egg mixture before baking so the custard sets evenly; dry patches stay dense and uneven as the eggs cook.
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, cinnamon, egg, sugar, rum):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Applefits about as well
- Raisinthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, cinnamon, egg, sugar, rum. 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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