Skip to main content
Dessert

Flour Bread Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, milk, butter, eggs, sugar, bread crumbs, and cognac.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Flour Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a saucepan over medium heat, mix flour, milk or water, and melted butter until the batter loosens from the bottom.

  2. Let the mixture cool slightly, then add egg yolks, sugar, bread crumbs, salt, and mace.

Bake and serve

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff, then fold them into the batter along with the cognac.

  2. Pour the mixture into an oiled pudding pan and steam for 2½ hours.

  3. Serve with stewed plums, pears, or cherries.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Egg whites
Beaten until stiff, they trap air and give the pudding a light, airy structure.
Egg yolks
Enrich the batter and help it set into a tender, custard-like crumb.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the liquid and form the body of the pudding.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to a soft, tender texture.
Flour
Thickens the mixture and gives the pudding its structure.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiffly beaten whites hold air that makes the pudding light. Stirring them in vigorously deflates the foam and leaves a dense result, so fold gently until just combined.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

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

Apple 145Chocolate 53Brown 51Fruit 44Lemon 37Steamed 29 See all 1,021 →

You might also like

Soft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipesBread Crumb CakesBread Crumb Cakes30 recipesGingerbreadGingerbread25 recipes