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Dessert

Rich Bread and Butter Pudding

A custard‑filled bread pudding made with milk, cream, eggs, sugar, salt, brandy, currants, candied peel, and buttered bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Rich Bread and Butter Pudding

Why it works: Brandy and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Rich 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.

Make the custard

  1. Flavor the milk with lemon rind, bitter almonds, or cinnamon, and simmer.

  2. Strain the milk and mix it with the cream.

  3. Sweeten with sugar while hot, then stir in the beaten eggs.

  4. Add salt and mix briskly while incorporating the brandy.

Assemble and soak

  1. In a buttered dish, layer the bread with currants and candied peel.

  2. Pour the egg and milk mixture over the layers gradually, allowing the bread to absorb it.

  3. Let the pudding soak for 2 hours.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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. Brandy + curranttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, 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, binding the pudding into a soft, sliceable texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that soaks into the bread.
Cream
Adds fat for a richer, smoother custard.
Bread
Soaks up the custard and sets into a soft, pudding-like crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the top brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Pouring the custard over the layers gradually. Adding the custard slowly lets the bread absorb it evenly. Pouring it all at once floods the dish, leaving pockets of loose liquid and dry bread that cook unevenly.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, sugar, egg, brandy, bread. 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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