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Dessert

A Good Baked Bread Pudding

A moist bread pudding made with bread crumbs, milk, eggs, sugar, butter, candied orange rind, and nutmeg, topped with whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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A Good Baked Bread Pudding

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 ↓

A Good Baked Bread Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the base

  1. Pour boiling milk over the bread crumbs and butter in a bowl.

  2. Cover and let stand until soaked.

  3. Stir in sugar, egg yolks, candied orange rind, and nutmeg until well combined.

  4. Let the mixture cool, then pour it into a baking dish.

Make the icing and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until frothy.

  2. Mix in the sifted sugar.

  3. Spread the mixture over the pudding.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and form the soft body of the pudding.
Eggs
Set the custard as it bakes, giving the pudding structure and richness.
Milk
Provides the liquid that soaks the bread and forms the custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the egg whites hold a stable topping.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender crumb.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before pouring it into the dish. Adding the custard while it is still hot can start cooking the egg yolks unevenly, which may leave a grainy texture. Cooling it first helps the pudding set smoothly in the oven.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, milk, sugar, 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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