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 ↓
A Cheap Bread-Pudding
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
Soak the bits of bread in cold water overnight or for several hours until covered.
Grease a baking dish with dripping.
Drain the soaked bread using a colander.
Mix and bake
Mix in skim milk, eggs, sugar, dripping, and all-spice.
Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for less than an hour.
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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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
- Bread
- Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up the milk and egg mixture.
- Eggs
- Set when baked, binding the bread and milk into a firm, sliceable custard.
- Skim milk
- Provides the liquid that softens the bread and forms the custard base.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the top brown during baking.
- Dripping
- Adds fat for richness and moisture, and helps the surface brown.
The step that matters
Soaking the bread until fully covered. Bread that is fully saturated absorbs the liquid evenly, so the pudding bakes with a uniform texture rather than dry pockets or soggy patches.
“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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