Name: Another Baked Bread Pudding
Ingredients: 1 pint new milk; ¼ pint heavy cream; 8 ounces bread crumbs; 3 ounces unsalted butter; 4 ounces sugar; 6 ounces currants; 1½ ounces candied orange or citron; 5 large eggs

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Another Baked Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Boil the milk and cream together.
Pour the boiling mixture over the bread crumbs and butter.
Cover and let it sit for 30 minutes.
Stir in the sugar, currants, and candied orange or citron.
Beat the eggs and mix them in thoroughly.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

Swap the orange

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Raspberryfits better
Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, bread, butter, sugar, currant, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.