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Dessert

Brown Bread Pudding

A steamed pudding made from brown bread crumbs, butter, sugar, cherries, eggs, milk, lemon rind, spices, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Brown Bread Pudding

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Brown Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Boil the milk and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the bread crumbs, sugar, and cherries, and cook until thick.

  3. Break the eggs and add the yolks to the mixture. Mix well and add flavorings.

  4. Beat the egg whites until stiff and gently fold them into the mixture.

Steam and serve

  1. Turn the mixture into a greased tin or bowl and steam gently for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

  2. Turn the pudding out and pour wine sauce around it.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the custard, while whipped whites lighten and set the pudding.
Brown bread crumbs
Form the body of the pudding, soaking up the milk and butter to give it a soft, moist crumb.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the pudding a tender texture and smooth mouthfeel.
Milk
Hydrates the bread crumbs and helps form a thick, cohesive base.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps soften the crumb texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiff whites hold air that lightens the pudding; overmixing or stirring vigorously deflates them, leaving a dense result. Fold gently so the air stays trapped during steaming.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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