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Dessert

Bread Pudding

A custard-like dessert made by soaking bread in milk, eggs, sugar, and nutmeg, then baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Bread Pudding

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Bread Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the custard

  1. Place the bread slices in a dish and pour the milk over them.

  2. Heat on the stove until it simmers, but do not let it boil.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool.

  4. In a bowl, beat together the eggs, sugar, and nutmeg.

  5. Carefully stir the egg mixture into the cooled milk.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 45 minutes.

  2. Serve with whipped cream on top.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Soaks up the custard and forms the soft, tender body of the pudding.
Milk
Provides the liquid that sets with the eggs and keeps the pudding moist.
Eggs
Set when baked, giving the pudding its structure and custard-like texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Let the milk cool before adding the eggs. Hot milk can start cooking the eggs as they are stirred in, causing lumps or a grainy texture. Cooling the milk first lets the custard blend smoothly and set evenly in the oven.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Celeryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, egg, sugar, cream. 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

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