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
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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Butter a deep dish and layer with slices of bread.
Sprinkle currants, sugar, spice, and candied peel over the bread.
Repeat layering for three or four rounds.
Make and bake
In a bowl, whisk together eggs, flour, and milk until smooth.
Pour the batter over the layered bread and let it soak for 1-2 hours.
Bake in the preheated oven for about 1 hour.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,341 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,655 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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
- Set the custard so the pudding firms up as it bakes.
- Bread
- Forms the layered structure that soaks up the batter.
- Whole milk
- Forms the liquid base of the custard, adding moisture and softness.
- Flour
- Helps thicken the batter so it holds together when baked.
- Currants
- Add sweetness and chewy bursts of fruit between the bread layers.
The step that matters
Letting the batter soak. The bread needs time to absorb the egg and milk mixture fully. Without soaking, dry patches stay in the pudding and the custard does not set evenly through the layers.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, sugar, cinnamon, egg, flour, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, sugar, cinnamon, egg, flour, milk. 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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