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Dessert

Put 5 Ounces of Brown Bread-Crumbs

A steamed or baked pudding made from brown bread crumbs, cherries, milk, cream, eggs, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Put 5 Ounces of Brown Bread-Crumbs

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a basin, combine the brown bread crumbs, sugar, cherries, vanilla, and lemon rind.

  2. Boil the milk and pour it over the crumb mixture.

  3. Whip the cream to stiff peaks and fold it into the mixture.

  4. Add the egg yolks one at a time, then fold in the whipped egg whites.

Cook and serve

  1. Butter a pint mold and pour in the mixture, covering it with buttered paper.

  2. Steam or bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

  3. Turn out onto a hot dish and serve with a sauce made from loaf sugar, water, and cherries.

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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Brown bread crumbs
Form the body of the pudding and soak up the milk and cream to set a soft crumb.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help bind the pudding as it cooks.
Egg whites
Whipped to add lightness and help the pudding rise and hold a airy texture.
Heavy cream
Whipped and folded in to add richness and a tender, moist texture.
Milk
Softens the bread crumbs and adds moisture to the mixture.
Cherries
Provide fruit flavor, sweetness, and moisture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Fold in the whipped egg whites. Whites hold air only if whipped to stiff peaks and folded gently, so the pudding stays light rather than deflating and turning dense.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, vanilla, milk, cream, egg, butter, 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.

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