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Dessert

A Delicate Bread Pudding

A moist bread pudding made with bread crumbs, milk, butter, sugar, eggs, and lemon, topped with whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

A Delicate Bread Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard

  1. Combine milk and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add bread crumbs and sugar.

  3. Heat slowly until it boils, then remove from heat.

  4. Stir in egg yolks, lemon rind, and juice.

Bake

  1. Pour mixture into a buttered pie dish.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 10 minutes.

Top and finish

  1. Whip egg whites until stiff.

  2. Add a pinch of salt and 2 teaspoons of castor sugar.

  3. Spread whipped egg whites on top of pudding in rocky heaps.

  4. Return to oven for 3-4 minutes until done.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Provides the body and structure that soak up the milk and custard.
Milk
Supplies the liquid that moistens the crumbs and sets into a custard with the eggs.
Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the custard, and whipped whites trap air to form the light topping.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender texture.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the egg white topping stay stable and brown lightly.
Lemon
Its rind and juice add bright aroma and a touch of acidity.

The step that matters

Whip the egg whites until stiff. Beating unfolds the egg white proteins so they trap air and hold peaks. Under-whipped whites will slump into the custard instead of standing in heaps and browning on top.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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