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Dessert

Bread and Butter Pudding

A sweet pudding made with layered bread, currants, raisins, milk, eggs, and spices, baked and served with butter, wine, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Bread and Butter Pudding

Why it works: Raisin and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Bread and Butter Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grease a mold with butter.

  2. Layer the bottom with thin-cut bread and butter, removing the crusts.

  3. Sprinkle a layer of mixed currants and stoned raisins over the bread.

  4. Add half of the chosen alcohol (brandy, rum, or currant wine).

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, mix the milk, beaten eggs, grated nutmeg, and brown sugar.

  2. Pour the milk mixture over the layered bread and fruit.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the pudding for 1.5 hours.

  2. Serve with melted butter, currant wine, and sugar.

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.

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.

  1. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the milk mixture into a custard that holds the pudding together.
Milk
Forms the liquid custard that soaks into the bread and gives a soft, moist texture.
Thin-cut bread
Soaks up the custard and forms the body of the pudding.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy moisture among the bread layers.
Stoned raisins
Add sweetness and chewy moisture that contrasts with the soft custard.

The step that matters

Boil the pudding for 1.5 hours. Egg custards set through gentle, even heat. A hard rolling boil can make the eggs curdle and leave the texture rubbery or watery. Keep the cooking liquid at a steady, gentle simmer so the pudding sets evenly throughout.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, raisin, brandy, milk, egg, nutmeg. 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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