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Dessert

German Bread Pudding

A sweet bread pudding made with milk, eggs, butter, currants, sugar, cinnamon or nutmeg, candied peel, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

German Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grate off the crust from the rolls.

  2. Soak the rolls in milk, then squeeze out the milk.

  3. Beat the eggs and add to the mixture.

  4. Add the butter, currants, sugar, and cinnamon or nutmeg, and mix well.

Assemble and cook

  1. Butter a pudding mold.

  2. Place a slice of candied peel at the bottom of the mold.

  3. Arrange raisins in a pattern around the peel and on the sides of the mold.

  4. Pour in the mixture and cover the top of the mold.

  5. Boil or steam for 2 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with sweet sauce.

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. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Rolls
Bread soaked in milk forms the soft, custard-absorbing body of the pudding.
Eggs
Set when heated, binding the soaked bread into a firm, sliceable pudding.
Milk
Soaks the bread and, with the eggs, gives the pudding its moist, tender texture.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy fruit pieces throughout the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and contributes to its flavor balance.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a softer, more rounded mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Squeeze out the milk after soaking the rolls. Bread that stays waterlogged dilutes the egg custard and can leave the pudding wet and loose when set. Squeezing removes excess liquid so the eggs can bind the bread into a firm pudding.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, butter, sugar, cinnamon, raisin. 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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