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Dessert

Bread and Butter Pudding

A baked dessert made with buttered bread, currants, sugar, spices, candied peel, eggs, flour, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Bread and Butter Pudding

Why it works: Cinnamon and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,341 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Bread and Butter 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.

Prepare

  1. Cut the buttered bread into slices about ⅛ inch thick.

  2. Butter a deep dish and layer the bread slices in it.

Layer

  1. Sprinkle currants, sugar, spice, and candied peel between layers of bread.

  2. Repeat layering for three or four rounds.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, whisk together eggs, flour, and milk until smooth.

  2. Pour the batter over the layered bread and let it soak for 1-2 hours.

Bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C) and bake for 1 hour.

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. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

Eggs
Set the custard as they heat, binding the batter into a sliceable, custardy pudding.
Milk
Provides the liquid that soaks into the bread and gives the pudding its moist texture.
Bread
Forms the structure and absorbs the custard as it soaks.
Flour
Thickens the custard slightly so it holds together and does not run.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the eggs and milk.

The step that matters

Letting the bread soak. Soaking lets the bread absorb the custard so it bakes evenly, without dry pockets or a watery layer. As the eggs heat they set, firming the custard into a smooth, creamy texture.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, cinnamon, egg, flour, 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.

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