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Dessert

Pouding Au Pain Noir

A custard-like pudding made with brown breadcrumbs, milk, butter, sugar, eggs, candied peel, spices, and optional sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pouding Au Pain Noir

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the base

  1. Boil the milk and pour it over the breadcrumbs.

  2. Add the cinnamon, nutmeg, and a pinch of salt.

Make the custard

  1. In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Combine the breadcrumb mixture with the creamed mixture and stir in the candied peel.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 30-40 minutes until set.

  3. Serve warm, optionally with a drizzle of sherry.

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.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set into a sliceable pudding when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a tender crumb and soft mouthfeel.
Brown breadcrumbs
Form the bulk of the pudding and soak up the milk to create its body.
Milk
Moistens the breadcrumbs and forms the custard that sets around them.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps brown the surface as it bakes.

The step that matters

Baking until set. Eggs thicken as they heat, but overbaking makes them curdle and dries the pudding. Bake until just set in the centre so the custard stays smooth and moist.

“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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