Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓
Viennoise Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the caramel milk
Combine 1 oz sugar and 1 teaspoon water in an iron saucepan; heat until the sugar melts and turns dark brown.
Pour the milk over the caramel and let it stand to color.
Make the pudding mix
In a bowl, mix the stale bread, raisins, chopped peel, and castor sugar.
Beat the eggs and mix them with the caramelized milk until it is a deep coffee color.
Pour the egg mixture over the bread mixture and let it soak well.
Steam and serve
Grease a mold and steam the pudding until firm, about 1 hour (or 30 minutes for small timbale molds).
If desired, add a glass of sherry and increase the bread by 1 oz.
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.
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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,479 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
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Raisin + milktop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,155 recipes
Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Stale bread
- Absorbs the egg and milk mixture and gives the pudding its body.
- Eggs
- Set when steamed, binding the pudding into a firm, sliceable texture.
- Milk
- Provides moisture and, colored with caramel, the pudding's coffee-brown color.
- Sugar
- Melted into caramel to color and flavor the milk, and sweetens the pudding.
- Sultana raisins
- Add moisture and concentrated sweetness as they plump in the custard.
The step that matters
Heating the sugar to a dark caramel. Sugar heated past golden turns dark and bitter if overcooked, and it can scorch quickly. Dark brown, not black, gives color and flavor without a burnt taste that would carry into the milk.
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sugar, milk, egg, sherry):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Applefits better
- Raisinthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, milk, egg, sherry. 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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