Why it works: Milk and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Bread Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Soak stale bread pieces in milk.
Add currants, sugar, lemon rind or vanilla, and eggs. Beat well together.
Bake and serve
Bake in well-buttered teacups, three parts full, for 20 minutes.
Turn out of cups before serving.
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.
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,475 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 mixture and set it into a tender, custard-like crumb when baked.
- Milk
- Soaks the bread and supplies moisture for a soft, tender texture.
- Stale bread (in the method)
- Provides the body of the pudding and absorbs the milk and egg mixture.
- Currants
- Add pockets of sweet, chewy fruit throughout the pudding.
The step that matters
Soak the bread fully in milk. Dry bread needs time to absorb the liquid evenly. Pieces left dry will stay firm and spongy in places, while well-soaked bread bakes into a uniform, moist pudding.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, lemon, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Orangefits better
- Figfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, lemon, 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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