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 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the bread
Soak the bread in cold water.
Squeeze the soaked bread very dry.
Remove any lumps from the bread.
Add boiling milk to the soaked bread.
Make the custard
Beat the egg.
Mix the beaten egg with sugar and nutmeg.
Combine the egg mixture with the bread and milk.
Bake
If desired, add a few sultanas before baking.
Bake the pudding slowly at 300°F (150°C) until firm.
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 + 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).
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Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together14,685 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together24,744 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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, soaking up milk and egg to set into a soft crumb.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that softens the bread and forms the custard with the egg.
- Egg
- Sets during baking to bind the bread and milk into a firm, sliceable pudding.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the custard brown lightly at the surface.
- Nutmeg
- Adds a warm, aromatic flavour to the custard.
The step that matters
Bake the pudding slowly. Egg proteins set gently at a moderate oven heat; too hot a bake can curdle the custard, leaving it grainy or watery rather than smooth and firm.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, egg, sugar):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Gingerfits less well
- Allspicefits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, egg, 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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