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Dessert

A Brown Bread Pudding

A pudding made from stale brown bread, suet, currants, sugar, nutmeg, candied peel, eggs, and brandy, boiled in a cloth.

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

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 Brown Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large bowl, combine the grated brown bread, chopped suet, cleaned currants, salt, sugar, grated nutmeg, and candied peel.

  2. Add the well-beaten eggs and brandy, mixing thoroughly.

Cook and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture into a cloth and boil for 3.5 hours.

  2. Serve with port wine 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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 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. Bread + brandytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together976 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

Stale brown bread
Provides the bulk of the pudding and absorbs the liquid as it steams.
Suet
Adds richness and a tender, moist texture as it melts during cooking.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help it set firm as it cooks.
Currants
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and fruit flavour throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Boiling the pudding in a cloth. The mixture must be tightly wrapped and kept at a steady boil for the full time. Water getting inside or a drop in heat leaves the pudding soggy or unevenly set.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, nutmeg, egg, 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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