Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Queen of Bread Puddings
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard base
In a saucepan, combine milk, butter, breadcrumbs, and sugar. Heat slowly until boiling.
Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice, lemon rind, and egg yolk.
Pour the mixture into a buttered pie dish and bake for 10 minutes.
Top and finish
Whip the egg white until stiff, then gently fold in 2 teaspoons of sugar.
Spoon the whipped egg white in rocky heaps on top of the pudding and bake for an additional 4 minutes.
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.
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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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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Breadcrumbs
- Form the bulk of the pudding and soak up the milk to set a soft body.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that softens the breadcrumbs and sets into a custard as it bakes.
- Egg
- Egg yolk thickens the custard and egg white whipped to stiff peaks lightens the topping.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and helps the whipped egg white hold its shape.
- Lemon
- Adds bright acidity and aroma from the juice and grated rind.
The step that matters
Folding the whipped egg white. Fold the whipped white gently so the air bubbles stay trapped. Overmixing deflates the foam, and the rocky topping then bakes flat and dense instead of light.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, sugar, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Coconutfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, sugar, 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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