Name: Bread-and-butter Pudding
Ingredients: slices of buttered bread (crusts removed); English currants; boiled custard; nutmeg or other flavoring

Why it works: Bread and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,997 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Bread-and-butter Pudding

Ingredients

slices of buttered bread (crusts removed)
English currants
boiled custard
nutmeg or other flavoring

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.

Layer English currants between slices of buttered bread.
Pour boiled custard flavored with nutmeg or your choice of flavoring over the bread.
Let the mixture soak in the custard.
Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 15 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.

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.

Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,997 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Currant + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,983 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Bread + curranttop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,398 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).