Name: Bread Pudding, Baked
Ingredients: 8 oz stale bread, torn into small pieces; 4 oz raisins or currants, cleaned and picked; 2 oz finely chopped suet; 2 oz sugar; 1 egg; a little milk; a good pinch of nutmeg

Why it works: Raisin and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Bread Pudding, Baked

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 the bread

Soak the bread pieces in cold water for 1 hour, then strain and squeeze dry.

Mix the pudding

Beat out lumps with a fork, then stir in sugar, suet, raisins, and nutmeg.
Add the beaten egg and enough milk to make the mixture moist enough to drop from a spoon.

Bake and serve

Pour the mixture into a greased pie dish and bake gently at 350°F (175°C) for about 1 hour.
When done, turn out onto a hot dish and sprinkle generously with sugar.

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.

Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,997 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread: Soaked and squeezed, it forms the body of the pudding and absorbs the liquid.
Egg: Binds the mixture and helps it set as it bakes.
Suet: Adds richness and fat, keeping the pudding moist and tender.
Raisins: Add pockets of sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Sugar: Sweetens the pudding and adds a sweet finish when sprinkled on top.
Milk: Moistens the mixture so it holds together and bakes softly.

The step that matters

Adjusting the milk. The mixture should be moist enough to drop from a spoon. Too little milk leaves the pudding dry and dense, while too much makes it loose and slow to set, since the bread can only absorb so much liquid.

Swap the raisin

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits about as well
Raisinthe original
Lemonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, egg, milk, nutmeg. 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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Bread Pudding, Baked