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Dessert

Modern Cookery

A custard-soaked bread pudding flavored with brandy, lemon, currants, candied peel, and almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 (or cream) with the lemon rind and bruised almonds (or cinnamon) for 10 to 20 minutes.

  2. Whisk together the eggs, sugar, and brandy in a bowl.

Assemble and soak

  1. In a thickly buttered dish, layer the bread and butter, 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. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

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 holds together as it bakes.
Bread and butter
Forms the structure, soaking up the custard and baking into a soft, tender body.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the bread absorbs and that bakes into the custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the custard brown lightly at the surface.
Currants
Add pockets of concentrated sweetness and chew through the pudding.

The step that matters

Pour the egg mixture gradually. Adding the custard in stages lets the bread absorb it fully. Pouring all at once can leave soggy pools of liquid and dry, unsoaked bread, so the pudding bakes unevenly.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Orangethe original

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