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 ↓
Beead and Fruit 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 the bread and fruit
Cut the rolls into square pieces and soak them in milk.
Peel and chop the apples, then stew them with sugar and butter for 15 minutes.
Add the raisins to the apple mixture.
Assemble and bake
Beat the butter and eggs together until frothy.
Place the soaked bread in a buttered mold and layer it with the fruit mixture.
Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 hours.
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.
-
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Milk + appletop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,104 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
-
Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,920 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
-
Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
-
Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,706 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rolls
- Soak up milk and form the bulk and structure of the pudding.
- Eggs
- Bind the pudding and set during baking to give a custard-like texture.
- Milk
- Soaks the bread and provides moisture that keeps the pudding tender.
- Apples
- Add moisture and a tart-sweet fruit flavour that layers through the pudding.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and promotes light browning on the baked surface.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and softens the crumb.
The step that matters
Beating the butter and eggs until frothy. Air trapped in the beaten eggs and butter helps the pudding rise lightly and keeps the texture soft rather than dense. Under-beaten mixture can leave the custard heavy.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, butter, raisin, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Coconutfits about as well
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, butter, raisin, egg. 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
You might also like
Apple Pudding256 recipes
Apple Cake80 recipes
Apple Meringue75 recipes
Dried Apple Cake51 recipesThe 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.