Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓
Bread-and-butter 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 dish
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Pick and wash the currants, then sprinkle a few on the bottom of a baking dish.
Cut thin slices of bread and butter, removing some crusts, and layer them in the dish.
Make the custard and layer
Make the custard by beating the eggs with milk, powdered sugar, and ratafia.
Pour some custard mixture over the bread and sprinkle with currants.
Repeat with two more layers of bread, custard, and currants.
Optionally add chopped candied lemon or orange peel among the currants.
Pour the custard over the layered bread and currants.
Let it soak for 2 hours before baking.
Bake
Bake for about 45 minutes until set and golden.
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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,187 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
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Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together35,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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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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Vanilla + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,961 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
- Eggs
- Set the custard as they cook, giving the pudding its firm, sliceable structure.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid custard that soaks into the bread and keeps the pudding moist.
- Bread
- Soaks up the custard and forms the body of the pudding.
- Currants
- Add pockets of sweetness and chewy fruitiness throughout the layers.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the custard and helps the top brown lightly in the oven.
The step that matters
Let it soak for 2 hours before baking. Soaking lets the bread absorb the custard fully before heat sets it. Bread that is not saturated can leave dry pockets or a watery layer at the bottom.
Swap the lemon
The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (currant, bread, egg, milk, sugar, vanilla):
- Figfits better
- Raspberryfits better
- Peachfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against currant, bread, egg, milk, sugar, vanilla. 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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