Name: Steamed Bread Pudding
Ingredients: 1 cup soft bread crumbs; 2 cups scalded milk; ¼ cup sugar; 3 egg yolks; ½ cup currants or raisins; ¼ cup candied orange peel; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon nutmeg

Why it works: Orange and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,746 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Steamed Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

In a bowl, mix the bread crumbs, scalded milk, sugar, egg yolks, currants or raisins, candied orange peel, salt, and nutmeg in the order given.
Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

Steam and serve

Steam for three hours.
Serve with wine or creamy sauce.

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.

Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,746 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,997 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Currant + orangetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,034 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Yolks bind the mixture and help it set into a tender, custard-like pudding.
Bread crumbs: Absorb the milk and give the pudding its body and soft crumb.
Milk: Provides moisture and softens the bread, helping the pudding stay tender.
Currants or raisins: Add pockets of sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps tenderize the custard.

Swap the currant

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Lemonfits better
Currantthe original

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