Name: Bread Pudding, Baked
Ingredients: 8 oz stale bread; 4 oz raisins or currants, cleaned and picked; 2 oz finely chopped suet; 2 oz sugar; 1 egg; milk, as needed; a good pinch of nutmeg

Why it works: Raisin and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Bread Pudding, Baked

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the bread

Break the bread into small pieces and cover with cold water.
Soak for 1 hour.
Strain the bread and squeeze dry.
Beat out lumps with a fork.

Mix and bake

Stir in the sugar, suet, raisins, and nutmeg. Mix well.
Add the beaten egg and enough milk to make the mixture moist enough to drop from a spoon.
Pour into a greased pie dish.
Bake at 300°F (150°C) for about 1 hour.
When done, turn out onto a hot dish and sprinkle with sugar.

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.

Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,997 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread: Forms the body of the pudding, soaking up liquid to become soft and tender.
Egg: Binds the mixture and helps it set firm when baked.
Suet: Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich in texture.
Raisins or currants: Add sweetness and chewy pockets of fruit throughout the pudding.
Sugar: Sweetens the pudding and adds flavour.

The step that matters

Adding milk to the mixture. Too little milk leaves the pudding dry and crumbly, while too much keeps it wet and stops it setting. The mixture should be moist enough to drop from a spoon, so the bread can absorb the liquid and the egg can set during baking.

Swap the raisin

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits about as well
Raisinthe original
Lemonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, egg, milk, nutmeg. 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 bread pudding recipes

Apple 145 Chocolate 53 Brown 51 Fruit 44 Lemon 37 Steamed 29 See all 1,021 →

Soft Ginger Bread85 recipes

Orange Potato Bread80 recipes

Bread Crumb Cakes30 recipes

Gingerbread25 recipes

Like knowing why a recipe works?

The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Bread Pudding, Baked