Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓
Bread and Butter Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
In a saucepan, boil the milk with lemon peel and sugar.
Beat the egg and mix it into the milk, then heat until thickened.
Butter the slices of bread or French roll and soak them in the custard for 1-2 hours.
Layer the soaked bread in a dish, sprinkling currants and pounded sugar between layers.
If desired, add sweetmeats on top.
Pour over another 2 cups of milk mixed with 2 beaten eggs.
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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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, lemon, sugar, butter, bread):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Peachfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, lemon, sugar, butter, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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