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Dessert

Viennoise Pudding

A sweet bread pudding made with stale bread, raisins, candied peel, lemon rind, sherry, milk, eggs, and sugar.

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

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

  1. In an old saucepan, burn the lump sugar to a dark brown.

  2. Pour in the milk and stir until well colored and the sugar is dissolved.

Make the custard base

  1. Beat the eggs well, then strain the colored milk onto them and add the sherry.

  2. In a basin, combine all the dry ingredients and pour the egg, milk, and sherry mixture over them.

  3. Let the pudding soak for 30 minutes.

Steam and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a well-greased pint mold, cover with buttered paper, and steam for 1.5 hours.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  3. Sherry + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  4. Bread + sherrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together682 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Lemon + milktop 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

Stale bread
Absorbs the liquid custard and gives the pudding its body.
Eggs
Set during steaming to bind the pudding and give it structure.
Milk
Provides the liquid that soaks the bread and forms the custard.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps it brown slightly as it cooks.
Sultanas
Add chewy sweetness and moisture as they plump in the soaked mixture.
Sherry
Adds aroma and a warm, fruity flavour to the custard.

The step that matters

Burning the lump sugar to a dark brown. Sugar darkens quickly once it passes golden, so it can turn bitter if left too long. Stop when it is dark brown and remove it from heat before adding the milk, which will spatter and cool the caramel.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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