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Viennoise Pudding

A steamed bread pudding with candied peel, raisins, lemon, and custard sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Viennoise 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 ↓

Viennoise Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. In a basin, combine the bread, candied peel, sultana raisins, and grated lemon rind.

  2. In a small saucepan, heat 1 tablespoon of sugar until brown, then add the milk and stir until hot.

  3. Add the hot milk to the basin with the other ingredients, then beat the eggs and stir them in along with the lemon juice.

Prepare the mold

  1. Butter a fancy mold and dust it with sugar, adding a few cherries at the bottom for decoration.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the pudding mixture into the mold, cover with buttered paper, and steam for one hour.

  2. Unmold and serve with custard 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.

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 + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides 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 and soaks up the milk and egg mixture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set when steamed, giving the pudding its firm texture.
Milk
Provides the liquid that softens the bread and keeps the pudding moist.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, when heated until brown, a caramel flavor and color.
Sultana raisins
Add sweetness and chewy pockets of fruit throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Heating the sugar until brown. Sugar caramelizes quickly and can burn within seconds, turning bitter. Stirring and watching the color closely gives a rich caramel flavor rather than a harsh, scorched taste.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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