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Dessert

Bread Pudding

A baked dessert made with bread, suet, sugar, eggs, milk, and jam.

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

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 Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the bread

  1. Chop the suet finely.

  2. Break the bread into small pieces and soak in hot milk until soft.

  3. Beat the soaked bread with a fork until smooth.

Assemble and bake

  1. Add the suet, sugar, and beaten eggs to the bread mixture.

  2. Butter a pie dish and spread a layer of the mixture on the bottom.

  3. Add a layer of jam, then repeat until the dish is full, finishing with the mixture on top.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 1 hour.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Bread
Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up the milk to set into a soft crumb.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firmly when baked.
Hot milk
Softens the bread and adds moisture to the pudding.
Suet
Adds richness and fat, giving a tender texture.
Jam
Adds sweetness and fruity flavour between the layers.

The step that matters

Soak the bread until soft. The bread must absorb the hot milk fully before beating. Dry or lumpy pieces won't blend into a smooth base, and the eggs then set unevenly in the baked pudding.

“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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