Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓
Cherry Bread
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the mixture
In a large bowl, mix the brown bread crumbs, powdered sugar, egg yolks, whipped cream, lemon rind, cinnamon, and salt.
Gently fold in the whipped egg whites and set aside.
Assemble
Grease a mold with butter and sprinkle with brown bread crumbs.
Spread a spoonful of the mixture at the bottom, layer with cherries (stones left in), and repeat until the mold is filled.
Bake and serve
Place the mold on a baking sheet and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 1 hour.
Once done, turn out the pudding from the mold.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,950 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
- Forms the bulk of the pudding and soaks up moisture to give it body.
- Eggs
- Whipped whites add lift, and the yolks help bind and set the custard-like mixture.
- Whipped cream
- Adds richness and moisture, keeping the pudding tender.
- Powdered sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the mixture brown lightly as it bakes.
- Morello cherries
- Add tart fruit flavour and juice that moistens the crumb as it bakes.
The step that matters
Gently fold in the whipped egg whites. Whipped egg whites trap air that gives the pudding its lift. Stirring or beating them in vigorously knocks out that air, leaving a denser, flatter result.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sugar, egg, cream, cinnamon, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, egg, cream, cinnamon, butter. 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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