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Dessert

Viennoise Pudding

A steamed bread pudding made with bread crumbs, sugar, sultanas, candied peel, lemon rind, sherry, eggs, and milk.

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

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 ↓

Viennoise Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the bread into small cubes.

  2. Chop the candied peel coarsely.

  3. Clean the sultanas and mix them with the lemon rind and castor sugar.

  4. Butter a dry pudding mold or basin thoroughly.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, combine the water and loaf sugar and heat until dark brown.

  2. Add the milk to the saucepan and stir until boiling and the sugar has dissolved.

  3. Pour the mixture over the bread and other ingredients.

  4. Beat the eggs and quickly stir them into the mixture along with the sherry.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the pudding mixture into the mold and steam for about 1½ hours, until firm on top.

  2. Serve with German 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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  3. Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  4. Bread + sherrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together682 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up the liquid as it steams.
Eggs
Set when steamed, giving the pudding its firm, sliceable structure.
Milk
Provides moisture and liquid that softens the bread and carries the sugar.
Sherry
Adds aroma and a warm, fruity flavour to the pudding.
Sultanas
Add sweetness and chewy pockets of fruit throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Heating the water and loaf sugar until dark brown. Sugar caramelises as it darkens, and it goes bitter if overcooked. Removing it from the heat at the right colour gives a rich flavour without burning.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, egg, milk, sherry. 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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