Why it works: Bread and butter 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 Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Soak the bread
Pour boiling milk over grated bread and cover tightly.
Let it soak for 1 to 2 hours.
Make and cook the pudding
Beat the mixture until fine and mix in the eggs.
Transfer to a basin that just holds it and tie a floured cloth over the top.
Place the basin in boiling water and cook for 1 hour.
Serve
Serve with melted butter poured over it.
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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Bread + buttertop 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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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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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Grated bread
- Absorbs the hot milk and forms the soft body of the pudding.
- Milk
- Softens the bread and provides the moisture that keeps the pudding tender.
- Eggs
- Set as the pudding cooks, binding the bread into a firm, sliceable custard.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat for flavour and a smooth mouthfeel.
The step that matters
Cooking the basin in boiling water. Eggs set gently into a custard when heated steadily. Keeping the water at a steady simmer and the cloth well tied helps the pudding set evenly without curdling or turning watery.
“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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