Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
4 Bread Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut the bread into very thin slices and soak it in the milk over low heat until the bread absorbs all the milk.
Add the butter, stir, and let it cool.
Alternatively, boil the milk and pour it over the bread, covering it tightly.
Make the pudding
Beat the egg yolks and whites with rose water, nutmeg, salt, and sugar.
Mix everything together and place it in a cloth, tying it loosely to allow for expansion.
Boil and serve
Boil for 1 hour, then serve with melted butter poured over it.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Rose + nutmegtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,067 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together14,685 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together24,377 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Crumb of a penny loaf
- Forms the body of the pudding by soaking up the milk and holding its shape.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that softens the bread and gives the pudding its moisture.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich the custard and help bind the pudding as the proteins set with heat.
- Egg whites
- Add lightness and help the pudding set into a tender, sliceable mass.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the savoury notes of the eggs and nutmeg.
The step that matters
Tying the cloth loosely. The pudding expands as it heats, so a tight cloth can restrict it and trap pressure. Leaving room for expansion helps it cook evenly and keeps the texture light.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, egg, rose, sugar):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Allspicefits less well
- Gingerfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, egg, rose, 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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