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Dessert

Bread and Cheese Pudding

A baked pudding made from grated cheese, dried bread, mustard, cayenne pepper, egg, milk, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,130 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Bread and Cheese 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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Dry the bread in the oven and pound it to a powder.

Make the pudding

  1. Mix the grated cheese and powdered bread together.

  2. Add salt, mustard, cayenne pepper, egg, and milk; stir until well combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for 1 hour.

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. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Cheese + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Cheese
Provides fat, flavour and richness, and helps the pudding set as it melts and firms.
Bread
Forms the body of the pudding, soaking up the milk to give a soft, sliceable texture.
Egg
Binds the mixture and sets it into a firm custard-like structure as it bakes.
Milk
Moistens the bread and cheese and adds creaminess to the baked pudding.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that balances the richness of the cheese.

The step that matters

Drying and powdering the bread. Bread that is not fully dried will stay soggy and absorb milk unevenly, so the pudding may turn out wet rather than set into an even, firm texture.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, bread, pepper, egg, milk. 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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