Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓
Bread Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Soak the bread crumbs in the milk.
Add the beaten eggs, salt, butter, nutmeg, and sugar; stir well.
Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding dish.
Bake
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,997 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bread crumbs
- Soak up the milk and form the body of the pudding.
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and set into a custard as it bakes.
- Milk
- Provides liquid that softens the bread and forms the custard.
- White sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the top brown during baking.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat to the custard.
The step that matters
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour. Eggs set into a custard as they heat, and overbaking can make the pudding curdled, dry, or rubbery. Check that the center has just set before removing it from the oven.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, egg, milk, butter, sugar):
- Cinnamonfits about as well
- Nutmegthe original
- Parsleyfits less well
- Capersfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, milk, butter, sugar. 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.
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