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Dessert

Chocolate Bread Pudding

A custard-like dessert made from stale bread crumbs, milk, eggs, sugar, salt, vanilla, and melted chocolate, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Chocolate Bread Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Soak the bread

  1. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Add the stale bread crumbs.

  3. Let stand for 30 minutes.

Make the custard

  1. Melt the chocolate and add it to the mixture.

  2. Beat the eggs, then gradually mix in the sugar, salt, and vanilla.

  3. Combine everything.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour into a baking dish.

  2. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for about 40 minutes.

  3. Serve with hard sauce or cream.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Milk
Softens the bread and forms the liquid base of the custard.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb the liquid and give the pudding its body.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the pudding a firm, custardy structure.
Chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and richness throughout the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Letting the bread soak. The bread needs time to absorb the hot milk fully. Crumbs that stay dry will leave pockets in the baked pudding instead of an even texture.

“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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