Skip to main content
Dessert

Cheese Pudding

A steamed cheese and bread pudding made with buttered stale bread, cheese, mustard, milk, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Cheese Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Butter a basin.

Layer

  1. Cut thin slices of stale bread and layer them in the basin.

  2. Add a layer of grated or thinly sliced cheese.

  3. Sprinkle a dusting of mustard over the cheese.

  4. Repeat the layers until the basin is full.

Make the custard and steam

  1. In a separate bowl, whisk together the milk and eggs to make a custard.

  2. Pour the custard over the layered bread and cheese.

  3. Steam 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard, binding the milk into a soft, sliceable pudding as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that soaks into the bread and cheese.
Cheese
Adds rich flavour and melts into the custard, giving the pudding its savoury character.
Stale bread
Soaks up the custard and provides structure that holds the layers together.

The step that matters

Pour the custard over the layered bread and cheese. The bread needs to be fully soaked so the custard sets evenly; dry pockets stay bland and the eggs can curdle if the steam is too fierce.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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

More cheese pudding recipes

Spiced 3 See all 87 →

You might also like

Bread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesCheese BallsCheese Balls97 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipes