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Dessert

Peach Pudding

A baked peach bread pudding made with stale bread, peaches, custard of sugar, milk, eggs, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Peach 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter a deep earthenware dish and sprinkle sugar on the dish.

Layer and make the custard

  1. Layer the bread and peaches alternately in the dish, sprinkling sugar on the fresh peaches.

  2. Finish with a layer of bread on top and bottom.

  3. In a bowl, whisk together sugar, milk, eggs, and nutmeg.

  4. Pour the custard over the layered bread and peaches.

Bake

  1. Place the dish in a pan of water.

  2. Bake for one 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.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Peach + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together781 recipes

    Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).

  4. Peach + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard so it holds together as it bakes.
Bread
Soaks up the custard and forms the soft, structured body of the pudding.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, giving moisture and richness.
Peaches
Add fruity sweetness and moisture that bakes into the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and adds flavour and some browning.

The step that matters

Place the dish in a pan of water. A water bath moderates the heat reaching the custard, so the eggs set gently without curdling or turning rubbery. Keeping the oven heat gentle protects the smooth texture.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Clovefits less well

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