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Dessert

Chocolate Bread Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with milk, chocolate, sugar, butter, bread crumbs, and eggs, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chocolate Bread Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the custard base

  1. Dissolve the chocolate in ⅓ cup of milk.

  2. Gradually add the rest of the milk and beat well.

  3. Mix in the sugar and butter.

  4. Add the bread crumbs and set aside to cool.

Bake and serve

  1. Just before baking, beat in the eggs.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish.

  3. Bake for 45 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

  4. Serve with hard sauce made by creaming together butter and powdered sugar, flavored with vanilla.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set into a sliceable custard as it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and form the body of the pudding.
Milk
Hydrates the bread and forms the custard that the eggs set.
Chocolate
Gives the pudding its flavor and dark color.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the chocolate's bitterness.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for a tender texture.

The step that matters

Beat in the eggs just before baking. Eggs begin to set when mixed into warm liquid, so adding them late keeps the batter smooth and prevents early curdling or uneven setting in the oven.

“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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