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Dessert

Bread and Butter Puddings, Baked

A baked pudding made from sliced bread, butter, milk, eggs, and sugar, optionally with sultanas or currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Bread and Butter Puddings, Baked

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately cool oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Cut off the crust and divide each slice of bread into 4 squares.

  2. Arrange the squares in layers in a well-buttered pie dish, sprinkling each layer with sultanas or your choice of fruit.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the eggs and add the sugar, stirring until dissolved.

  2. Mix in the milk and pour gently over the bread, filling the dish only halfway.

Soak and bake

  1. Let it stand for at least 1 hour to allow the bread to soak.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for nearly 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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Bread + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread and butter
Forms the structure, and the soaked layers set into a soft, custardy body.
Eggs
Set the custard as it bakes, giving the pudding its body and richness.
Milk
Soaks into the bread and forms the liquid that the eggs set into custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps it brown lightly on top.

The step that matters

Letting the bread soak. The bread must stand at least an hour so it absorbs the custard evenly. Dry patches stay firm and do not set into a uniform, custardy pudding.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, egg, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, egg, 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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