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 ↓
Bread Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the bread base
Boil enough milk to cover the stale bread in a basin.
Once boiling, pour the milk over crumbled stale bread until it thickens to a stiff consistency.
Cover and let it sit for 10-15 minutes to allow the bread to swell.
Mash the mixture into a fine pulp and stir in a small piece of butter.
Make the custard mixture
Beat the eggs, then mix in the cinnamon, grated lemon peel, and sugar.
Combine this mixture with the bread pulp.
Add candied peel and currants if desired.
Cook and serve
To boil, place in a well-buttered pudding basin, cover with buttered paper, and boil for 1 hour without letting the water cover it.
To bake, pour into a buttered baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.
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.
-
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,950 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
-
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,655 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
-
Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Bind the bread pulp and set during cooking to give the pudding its structure.
- Stale bread
- Soaked in hot milk, it swells and forms the body of the pudding.
- Milk
- Softens the bread and keeps the pudding moist as it cooks.
- Butter
- Adds richness and prevents the pudding and dish from sticking.
The step that matters
Mashing the bread into a fine pulp. Thorough mashing gives an even, smooth texture. Lumps of unsoaked bread stay dry and firm, while overworked bread can turn gluey.
Swap the currant
The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, bread, butter, egg, cinnamon, lemon, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, bread, butter, egg, cinnamon, lemon, sugar. 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.
More bread pudding recipes
You might also like
Lemon Cake228 recipes
Lemon Ice147 recipes
Lemon Sherbet103 recipes
Soft Ginger Bread85 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.