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Dessert

A Bread and Butter Pudding

A traditional pudding made by layering buttered bread with currants, sugar, and a custard of eggs, milk, nutmeg, and brandy, then baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

A 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 off the crust from the loaf and butter it, cutting it as for tea.

  2. Prepare a dish with a little pastry on the edge.

Assemble

  1. Layer bread and butter at the bottom, then add currants and sugar.

  2. In a bowl, mix the eggs, milk, nutmeg, and sugar well.

  3. Pour a little of the mixture over the bread and currants.

  4. Add another layer of bread and currants, then pour more of the egg and milk mixture on top.

  5. Repeat until the dish is filled.

  6. Pour a glass of brandy over the top and add some suet.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for half an 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.

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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Nutmeg + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard, binding the pudding into a soft, sliceable texture as they cook.
Milk
Forms the custard with the eggs, keeping the bread moist as it bakes.
Bread (in the method)
Forms the structure of the pudding, soaking up the custard as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the bread brown on its buttered surfaces in the oven.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the butter and eggs.
Currants
Add sweet, chewy bursts of fruit throughout the layers of pudding.

The step that matters

Pour the custard in layers. Pouring the egg and milk mixture in stages lets the bread soak it up evenly. Pouring it all at once leaves dry bread on top and a soggy, unset base, because the bread can only absorb so much liquid at a time.

Swap the currant

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

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

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