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Dessert

Brown Bread Pudding

A pudding made from stale brown bread, currants, suet, sugar, nutmeg, eggs, and cream, boiled for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Brown Bread Pudding

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Brown Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, mix the grated bread, currants, suet, sugar, and nutmeg.

  2. Add the eggs and cream, and mix well.

Cook

  1. Place the mixture in a cloth or basin that fits it snugly.

  2. Boil for 3 to 4 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

  4. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Currant + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,983 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale brown bread
Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up the egg and cream mixture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help it set as it cooks.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy fruit pieces throughout the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds flavour.

The step that matters

Placing the mixture in the cloth or basin. The mixture must fit snugly so it holds its shape and cooks evenly. A loose fit lets water seep in during boiling, which can make the pudding soggy and heavy.

Swap the currant

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

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

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