Name: Bread Pudding with Fruit Sauce
Ingredients: 4 cups stale bread, cubed; 2 cups milk; ½ cup sugar; 2 eggs; 1 teaspoon vanilla extract; 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon; 1 cup mixed dried fruit; ¼ teaspoon salt

Why it works: Vanilla and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,287 recipes. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Bread Pudding with Fruit Sauce

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, combine the cubed bread and milk; let it soak for 10 minutes.
In another bowl, whisk together the sugar, eggs, vanilla, cinnamon, and salt.

Assemble and bake

Mix the soaked bread with the egg mixture and add the dried fruit.
Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.
Bake for 30-40 minutes until set and golden.

Serve

Serve warm with fruit 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.

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.

Vanilla + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,287 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).
Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,187 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Stale bread: Soaks up the custard so the pudding holds together with a soft, tender crumb.
Eggs: Set when baked, giving the pudding its structure and custard-like texture.
Milk: Forms the liquid custard that soaks the bread and bakes into a moist interior.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the top brown as it bakes.
Mixed dried fruit: Adds pockets of concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Bake until set and golden. Eggs set as they heat past about 70°C (160°F). Underbaking leaves the custard runny, while overbaking can make it dry and grainy, so watch for a firm centre and golden top.

“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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Bread Pudding with Fruit Sauce