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Dessert

Bread and Butter Pudding

A custard‑filled bread pudding with coconut and nutmeg, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Bread and Butter Pudding

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Bread and Butter Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Dissolve the sugar in the milk.

  3. Beat the eggs and pour the milk mixture over them, then add nutmeg.

Assemble

  1. Grease a pie dish and layer bread slices at the bottom.

  2. Sprinkle with coconut and repeat layers until the dish is three‑quarters full.

  3. Carefully pour the egg and milk mixture over the layers.

  4. Let the pudding stand for about 1 hour.

Bake

  1. Bake until set.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Coconut + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together411 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).

  4. Coconut + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the pudding its firm, sliceable body.
Milk
Forms the liquid custard that soaks into the bread and gives a creamy texture.
Bread
Absorbs the custard and provides the structure of the layers.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps it brown lightly in the oven.
Desiccated coconut
Adds sweetness, chewy texture and toasty flavour between the bread layers.

The step that matters

Let the pudding stand for about 1 hour. Standing lets the bread soak up the egg and milk custard before baking. Without this soaking, the bread stays dry in places and the pudding may bake unevenly and not set uniformly.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, nutmeg, 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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