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Dessert

Little Bread Puddings

A small bread pudding made with grated loaf, milk, eggs, butter, sugar, orange‑flower water, brandy, nutmeg, cream, and optional currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Little Bread Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the custard

  1. Soak the grated bread in warm milk.

  2. Beat the eggs and mix with the soaked bread.

  3. Add warmed butter, sugar, orange-flower water, brandy, nutmeg, and cream. Mix well.

  4. If using, fold in currants or orange/lemon candy.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into buttered tea-cups.

  2. Bake until set, then serve with pudding sauce.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Penny loaf
Soaks up the milk and gives the pudding its body and structure.
Eggs
Set as they heat, giving the pudding a firm, sliceable texture.
Milk
Moistens the bread and forms the liquid base of the custard.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer, softer texture and smoother mouthfeel.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and adds softness to the crumb.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, making the custard smoother and more tender.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Egg proteins set as they heat, so baking until just set keeps the custard smooth and tender. Overbaking squeezes out liquid and turns the custard grainy and rubbery. Remove it when the centre barely wobbles, since it keeps setting as it cools.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, butter, sugar, brandy, nutmeg, cream. 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

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