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 ↓
Plain Bread Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the mixture
In a basin, combine the bread crumbs and pour the boiling milk over them.
Cover with a plate to retain steam and let it sit for 20 minutes.
Beat the mixture until smooth, then add sugar and nutmeg.
Beat the eggs in a separate plate, then add them to the pudding mixture, excluding one egg white.
Cook
Mix everything well and pour into a well-buttered and floured mold.
Cover the mold with a cloth and boil for 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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Bread crumbs
- Absorb the hot milk and form the soft, starchy body of the pudding.
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and set during cooking to give the pudding its firm, custard-like texture.
- Milk
- Softens the bread crumbs and provides moisture so the pudding stays tender.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and contributes to the flavour of the pudding.
The step that matters
Pour the boiling milk over the crumbs and let them rest. The crumbs need time to fully absorb the hot milk so they swell and soften evenly. If they stay dry or lumpy, the finished pudding will have uneven texture and pockets of dry bread.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, sugar, egg, butter, flour):
- Cinnamonfits about as well
- Nutmegthe original
- Capersfits less well
- Parsleyfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, sugar, egg, butter, flour. 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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