Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓
Bread Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Soak the bread scraps in cold water.
Boil the milk in a saucepan. Add a piece of butter the size of a nut to the milk to prevent burning.
Squeeze out the water from the soaked bread. Return the bread to the basin.
Pour the boiling milk over the bread and let it soak until soft.
In a small bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar.
Stone the raisins or wash and dry the currants, checking for stones.
Chop the suet finely after removing the skin.
Mix and bake
Beat the soaked bread until smooth.
Mix in the raisins or currants, chopped suet, eggs, and sugar.
Grease a 1½ pint pie dish and pour in the mixture.
Bake in the oven at 350°F (175°C) until set.
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 + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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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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Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,155 recipes
Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).
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Bread + raisintop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,111 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
- Bread scraps
- Form the bulk of the pudding, absorbing the milk to become soft and tender.
- Milk
- Soaks into the bread to moisten it and gives the pudding its soft, custardy body.
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and help it set firm when baked.
- Moist sugar
- Adds sweetness and moisture, and its molasses flavour deepens the pudding.
- Suet
- Adds richness and fat, keeping the pudding moist and tender as it bakes.
The step that matters
Pour the boiling milk over the bread and let it soak until soft. The bread must absorb the milk fully so the mixture beats smooth and sets evenly. Under-soaked bread stays lumpy and dry in pockets, while the eggs cook unevenly through an uneven mix.
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, egg, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Datesfits about as well
- Raisinthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, egg, 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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