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Dessert

Brown Bread Pudding

A steamed pudding made from brown breadcrumbs, butter, sugar, eggs, milk, candied peel, cinnamon, nutmeg, and optional sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Brown Bread Pudding

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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 ↓

Brown Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

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

  2. Add the cinnamon, finely chopped or shredded candied peel, and salt.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together, then add the eggs one at a time.

  2. Mix in the soaked breadcrumbs and a little grated nutmeg.

  3. If using sherry, add it last.

Steam and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a well-buttered mold, cover with buttered paper, and steam for about two hours.

  2. Unmold the pudding onto a hot dish and serve with fruit syrup or custard sauce.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Cinnamon + milktop 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 firm, sliceable pudding as it steams.
Breadcrumbs
Form the body of the pudding, soaking up the hot milk to become tender.
Butter
Enriches the batter and adds richness and a soft, tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps cream the butter to a light texture.
Milk
Softens the breadcrumbs and adds moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Steam gently and keep the mold covered. Steaming with the mold sealed under buttered paper keeps moisture in, so the pudding cooks evenly and stays moist rather than drying out at the edges.

“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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