Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Bread Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the bread
Cut the crumb of the penny loaf into very thin slices.
Soak the bread in 1 quart of milk over a chafing dish until the bread absorbs all the milk.
Add 2 tablespoons butter and stir until combined.
Let the mixture cool.
Alternatively, boil the milk and pour it over the bread, covering it tightly.
Make and cook the pudding
Beat the yolks of 6 eggs and the whites of 3 with rose water, nutmeg, salt, and sugar.
Mix the egg mixture with the soaked bread until well combined.
Place the mixture in a cloth, tie it loosely, and boil for 1 hour.
Serve
Serve with melted butter poured over the pudding.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Rose + nutmegtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,067 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together14,685 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together24,377 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Butter + eggtop 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
- Penny loaf crumb
- Forms the body of the pudding, soaking up milk and holding the custard together.
- Milk
- Soaks into the bread and supplies the liquid that sets with the eggs.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich the custard and help it set into a tender, cohesive texture.
- Egg whites
- Add protein that sets during boiling, giving the pudding structure.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, giving a smoother mouthfeel.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the savory-leaning richness of eggs and butter.
The step that matters
Boil the pudding tightly wrapped but loosely tied. The cloth must be tied loosely because the pudding expands and needs room, while the wrapping holds its shape. Gentle, steady boiling sets the egg proteins evenly without curdling or toughening the custard.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, egg, rose, sugar):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Allspicefits less well
- Gingerfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, egg, rose, sugar. 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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