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Dessert

Modern Cookery

A custard bread pudding made with milk, lemon rind, almonds, currants, candied peel, eggs, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Modern Cookery

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the custard

  1. Simmer the milk, lemon rind, and bruised almonds (or cinnamon) for 10 to 20 minutes.

  2. In a bowl, whisk together the cream (if using), sugar, eggs, and brandy.

Assemble and soak

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

  2. Pour the egg mixture over the layers gradually, allowing the bread to absorb the liquid before adding more.

  3. Let the mixture soak for 2 hours.

Bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Bake 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.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, 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 milk and bread into a sliceable pudding.
Bread and butter
Forms the structure, soaking up the custard while the butter adds richness and browning.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the bread absorbs and the eggs set into custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the custard brown on the surface.
Currants
Add pockets of concentrated sweetness and chewy texture through the pudding.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour to the custard mixture.

The step that matters

Pour the egg mixture gradually. Adding the custard in stages lets the bread absorb liquid evenly, so the pudding does not turn soggy on the bottom or leave dry bread on top.

Swap the currant

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

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

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