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Savoury Bread Pudding

A baked dish of stale bread, milk, eggs, cheese, onion, butter, salt, and pepper.

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 ↓

Savoury 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

  2. Melt the butter in a pan and sauté the chopped onion until soft.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a bowl, combine the bread cubes, milk, eggs, cheese, sautéed onion, salt, and pepper.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.

  3. Bake for 30-40 minutes until set and golden on top.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  4. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  5. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread
Its dry, porous crumb soaks up the milk and egg custard, giving the pudding its body.
Eggs
They set when baked, binding the bread and milk into a sliceable custard structure.
Milk
It forms the liquid custard that soaks the bread and keeps the interior moist.
Cheese
It melts into the custard and browns on top, adding richness and savory flavor.
Onion
Softened by sautéing, it adds sweetness and savory depth to the custard.
Butter
It adds fat for richness and helps soften the onion without burning it.

The step that matters

Bake until set, not just warm. Eggs set as their proteins coagulate with heat. Pulling the pudding too early leaves a loose, wet center, while the 30-40 minute window and golden top show it is fully set.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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