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Bread and Jam Pudding

A pudding made by layering sliced bread with raspberry jam and baking it in a milk and cornflour mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Bread and Jam Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grease a pudding basin.

  2. Layer the bread slices in the basin, spreading each slice with raspberry jam.

Make the custard

  1. Dissolve the cornflour in the milk and beat well.

  2. Bring the milk mixture to a boil and pour it over the jam and bread.

  3. Let it stand for 1 hour.

Cook and serve

  1. Cover with a pudding cloth and boil for 1 hour.

  2. Serve hot or cold, turned out of the basin.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Raspberry + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,014 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Bread + raspberrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together70 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Raspberry + spreadtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together38 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl acetate (pineapple, fruity).

  5. Spread + milktop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Allinson bread
Forms the bulk of the pudding and soaks up the milk mixture to set into a soft body.
Raspberry jam
Adds sweetness and fruity flavour, and moistens the bread layers as it melts.
Cornflour
Thickens the milk so it sets into a custard that holds the bread together.
Milk
Provides the liquid that soaks the bread and, thickened, forms the custard.

The step that matters

Bring the milk mixture to a boil. Cornflour only thickens fully once the milk mixture reaches a boil, and it must be stirred or beaten well first so it does not form lumps. Undissolved starch leaves a grainy, uneven custard.

Swap the raspberry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, spread, milk):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, spread, milk. 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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