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Dessert

Bread Pudding

Bread pudding is a baked dish of sliced bread soaked in a custard of eggs, milk, sugar, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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

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).

Assemble

  1. Layer the sliced and buttered bread in a baking dish, scattering raisins in between.

  2. In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, scalded milk, and sugar until well combined.

  3. Pour the custard mixture over the bread, ensuring it is fully soaked.

  4. Let the dish stand for 1 to 2 hours to soak.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in the preheated oven until set and golden.

  2. Serve hot.

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. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

  4. Raisin + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  5. Bread + raisintop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,111 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 the pudding firms up when baked.
Sliced bread
Forms the structure that soaks up the custard and holds the pudding together.
Scalded milk
Provides the liquid base of the custard, keeping the pudding moist and tender.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Letting the bread soak before baking. If the bread is not fully saturated with custard, dry patches remain and the pudding bakes unevenly. The rest period gives the bread time to absorb the liquid.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

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

More bread pudding recipes

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

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